“Which brings us to the scariest part of Snow White’s story,” Axel said. Loki sighed impatiently, exchanging looks with Fable. “We all know that the wicked stepmother sent her huntsman after Snow White to kill her, right?”
“The huntsman couldn’t kill her,” Fable said. “Because she was beautiful and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.”
Axel looked like he wanted to hit Fable with feathers; many feathers. Loki almost laughed, thinking it was a good thing Fable was the wanna-be-witch, and not Axel, or this could’ve been how the world ended in sixty seconds.
“Now, listen to me because this will blow your mind,” Axel said. “In the original story, the wicked stepmother asked the huntsman to bring her Snow White’s heart and liver after he killed her.“
“Interesting,” Loki said.
“Are you serious?” Fable leaned forward. The poor girl had given up after everything she knew about fairy tales had been shattered in a span of minutes.
“Not just that. Although it’s true that the huntsman didn’t kill Snow White, he brought the stepmother a boar’s heart and liver to convince her he’d killed her,” Axel said.
“Gross,” Fable said. “Is this really written in the original Brothers Grimm text? Why didn’t they just turn fairy tales into cheap penny dreadfuls?”
“I’m beginning to wonder why I haven’t read those awesome fairy tales long ago,” Loki grinned. It made him wonder if what Charmwill had said about the darkness inside him was true.
“Are you guys starting to get my point?” Axel said. “I don’t know how much more proof you need to see that she was a vampire.”
“I’m still skeptical about if she is the real Snow White,” Loki said. “Tell me, why did the evil stepmother want Snow White’s heart and liver?” Loki asked.
“She thought that by consuming Snow White’s heart she could be the fairest of them all,” Fable answered voluntarily.
“I don’t think so,” Axel objected. “In my opinion, the heart was evidence that the huntsman had actually staked Snow White, the vampire. Or why would she ask for the heart. She could’ve simply asked for the princess’ blood-spattered dress as evidence.”
Loki scratched his head. He liked that explanation. “In a very weird way, all this makes sense,” he said. “As far as I know, people believed staking a vampire in the heart killed it once and for all in the older days. It makes sense if I ask you to bring me the heart of a vampire as proof for killing it. It was a plausible way for the huntsman to prove he killed her. Even nowadays, it still applies. So this explains the heart, but why the liver?”
“That one took me some time to figure out, but I finally found the answer, not in fairy tale books, but in history books,” Axel said. “Remember when we talked about the Vampire Craze in the 18th and 19th century?”
“Yes,” Loki nodded. “It was the first time historians ever mentioned, or suspected, the existence of vampires.”
“Exactly,” Axel clicked his fingers. “People reported that their relatives came back from the grave after they had buried them. They returned as vampires and bit their loved ones, turning them into vampires.”
“Where did that vampire craze start?” Fable inquired.
“In Europe,” Axel replied. “That’s why the Dracula story also originated from Transylvania. People in Europe went crazy, watching their loved ones come back from the grave with a dominant urge for blood and the inability to walk while the sun was out.”
“That’s interesting,” Fable remarked.
“Yes,” Loki confirmed. “Only these weren’t vampires. It was a disease—not that vampires didn’t exist, but the disease’s symptoms were similar to the needs and actions of,” Loki said.
“I don’t understand,” Fable shrugged her shoulders. “This is confusing.”
“It was a disease that spread in the 18th century,” Axel said. “It was called Porphyria back in the day,” Axel read from a history book like a mad scientist. “’Porphyria was a genetic liver affliction that affected the biosynthesis of blood giving the sufferer severe reactions to sunlight and causing their gums and lips to recede creating a fang-like effect and pale skin.’”
“In English, please?” Fable said.
“The disease caused people to have pale skin, grow slight fangs, and its only cure was to get injected with blood through the liver,” Loki explained. “Of course, it was an old fashioned cure in a time when medicine was still primitive.”
“Really?” Fable said with an open mouth. “Sounds exactly like vampire symptoms.”
“So what does this have to do with the liver the evil witch wanted to cook for dinner?” Loki asked Axel, clapping his hands together.
“Don’t you get it?” Axel said. “The disease caused failure of one’s liver. The only possible way of relieving the problem back then was the ingestion of large amounts of blood, which can be absorbed into the bloodstream through the stomach wall and onto the liver.”