“All right,” Shew nodded hesitantly. “Let’s do it.”
A while later, Cerené walked through the Wall of Thorns like a ghost through a curtain. She was tiny and thin—Shew believed she’d become so used to pain that the thorns scratching her body didn’t mean anything to her. She watched trickles of blood dripping from under Cerené’s dress before she disappeared behind the bushes into the Field of Dreams.
“See? I am here already,” Cerené said from behind the bushes.
Shew couldn’t see her. She only saw a magnificent light peering through from behind the bushes. In her mind, the light had no certain color. It was like nothing she’d even seen before. It was just magnificent.
A first reluctant step drew Shew closer to the thorn bush. The first cut was the deepest. The thorns sliced through her white and expensive dress and stained it with blood immediately. It was as if her dress craved blood.
Why does it have to hurt so much like in the real world? This is a dream for God’s sake!
Shew’s second cut was alarming. The thorn bush went crazy and slashed at her face slightly.
Why did she provoke the thorns, and why was that eerie flute playing nearby?
“Shew!” Cerené yelled. “What happened? I can’t see you. Why is that Dark Tune playing? How is this possible?”
Shew was speechless. She could feel the melody possessing her soul. The stories she’d heard about the Wall of Thorns were true. The music from the flute was part of Mozart’s the Magic Flute, the piece Oddly Tune was teaching her right before he turned into a werewolf.
What does this mean? Shut up! There is no time to understand. You should focus on WHY the music is playing. The Wall of Thorns only detects intruders.
“What is going on, Shew?” Cerené cried out beyond the thorns. “I’m coming for you. Wait!”
“No!” Shew managed to say, resisting the urge in her feet to dance in the thorn bush. “Stay where you are, Cerené!”
Shew, in the middle of her panic, wondered if this was why Loki didn’t come to kill her. Maybe the Queen of Sorrow figured out a way for Snow White to kill herself. If so, that would have been some genius plan, to send her back to a memory in her childhood were she should have died naturally.
Nonsense! Shew breathed in deeply as the thorns crawled and spiraled around her with their needle-sharp edges waiting for her to start dancing.
The Queen of Sorrow can’t kill me because I split my heart into seven pieces, and she needs to find them. Maybe Cerené is one of the Lost Seven. Maybe this is what this dream is all about.
She wanted to bend down and scream at her fidgeting legs, which desperately wanted to dance against her will.
The Lost Seven mean nothing at this point, because you’re not sixteen years old yet. She can kill you right now before splitting your heart. You know that if she changes the past in the Dreamworld, the future will change in the Waking World.
Shew raised her hands slowly and clapped her ears so she wouldn’t hear the Dark Tune.
It didn’t work.
A couple of thorns slashed at her hands.
“Why in the name of Sorrow is this music playing?” Shew let out a loud scream.
Then it hit her right in the face.
Of course, the music had to play. Shew wasn’t purely a local. It was true she was born in Sorrow, but in her blood, ancestry, and family tree, she was an evil Sorrow, a real one, a descendant of Night Sorrow, the most vicious vampire in the world. That is why the mermaid told Cerené she feared Shew at the lake that she hadn’t decided whose side she was on. To the Wall of Thorns, Shew was still an enemy.
She wondered how her father ever crossed over to fight the Intruders. He was also a blood descendant of the Sorrows. In many ways, they were both locals of the kingdom but also intruders. The Wall of Thorns decided to treat her as an intruder, and to kill her. At the time of this memory, she wasn’t immortal yet—and how about Carmilla, or was she immune because the wall was her own magic?
Shew couldn’t resist anymore and began dancing to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Although she gave it her best shot, the pain was too strong and she began to faint, her throbbing eyes flickering her way to her last visions of life. She was dying in her own dream, which meant she would stay in a Sleeping Death forever in the Waking World, a coma that no kiss could cure.
Carmilla had won after all.
8
A Never Ending Dream
Fable’s eyes flung open.
It was already daylight, and Axel was still sprawled on the floor next to her. He looked rather funny; his mouth was wide open as if waiting for someone to feed him a sandwich while asleep.
She gazed up at the Schloss’ ceiling, wondering how long she had been unconscious. Her head was heavy, and she couldn’t remember what exactly had taken place.