Once Beauty Twice Beast, Moon & Madly, Rumpelstein, Jawigi

by Cameron Jace

  “But I will turn into something else then, and you will not like me anymore. Would you like me as a frog?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Bear in mind I haven’t seen really much of whom you are, and I do like you.”

  “Why did you change your mind about the frog?” I asked.

  “Because I will miss this laugh, even if it’s veiled behind this crazy cloak you’re wearing,” he said, looking at me as if he was never going to see me again, as if he stared harder he’d find something to recognize me later, my eyes probably.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, “You don’t like frogs,” I hit him lightly on the chest, and he closed his eyes as if I just kissed him alive. His hands fidgeted. I thought he wanted to touch me back, and his manners kept him from doing so.

  “Alright,” I nodded and took a step back, now really worried that it was almost sunrise. I took the necklace in my hand so I’d put it on when I got down to the land. “I will go now and you can’t say ‘Wait!’ anymore. Agreed?”

  Jack pursed his lips like a spoiled child, and nodded, not taking his eyes off me while I slid with the vine all the way down.

  “I’ll be at the lake next to the Goblin Market tomorrow, right before sunset,” he yelled.

  “After sunset would be better,” I said as I descended, unable to hear anything else he had said. I didn’t think that meeting near the Goblin Market was a great idea, but I knew he just wanted to see me again, so he picked the place we first met.

  After I landed, I had to walk for a while, in case he watched me from up there, until I could ascend back to the sky and take my moon form.

  Although I was late, something attracted me by the lake before I could get back up. It was a tiny sound of pain or something. The night had been unusually silent since I came down from the beanstalk. Listening carefully, it sounded like a faint screaming of a moth, and it got me curious in a strange way. Using some of my light in the dark, I spotted the source of the sound. It was a caterpillar, a little bigger than usual, stuck on a snag in the middle of a lake – it was more of a dirty swamp, tangent to the road leading to the Goblin Market. But that didn’t matter. It was the screaming caterpillar that mattered. I caught it in a rare moment, giving turning into a butterfly. I had never seen this before, and I couldn’t resist approaching it.

  You shouldn’t be doing this. You have little time before the sun shines back.

  But I couldn’t. There was something about the butterfly screaming its way into life that I couldn’t resist. It reminded me of Jack’s necklace on my neck. Was this butterfly a having a second life too, turning from a caterpillar into a new and different creature, emerging from a pupa to become a sweet creature? What was the wisdom in its pain? The screams raised too many questions in my head. I wondered if death wasn’t really death, and if we people didn’t die, just reborn into something new, sometime much more beautiful.

  I was never going to know the answers because I was immortal.

  What’s wrong with you? Even if this necklace on your neck turned you into another new creature when you die, it wouldn’t be natural. Every unnatural thing has a price to it. And you could die and forget about immortality if you don’t get back home before sunrise.

  What if I could turn into a regular girl and be with Jack? I knew it was an irrational thought, but it was the first night in my life when I wanted to be human, just a regular girl with no responsibilities. I wanted to chase butterflies in a large poppy field, filled with purple, pink, and yellow roses. I wanted to feel the sun on my skin. I wanted to give up my brightness, and be paler as long as Jack was chasing me playfully in the field.

  You shouldn’t be in love. No one said the moon should be in love or have a relationship. You were made to do certain things, and that’s all. Even if you were allowed to fall in love, it shouldn’t be happening so fast. You just met Jack today and he is a thief, someone you should catch, not fall in love with.

  That night was a special night in my life, because for the first time I didn’t listen to the voice in my head. Instead, I listened to that inner thing that had no name, because it was magical, and I didn’t think magic needed a name, or a reasons. It was magic for Heaven’s sake. We all know what it feels like; no one needs to know what it looks like.

  I stood at the edge of the marches, my heart beating faster. I wanted to cross over and see the butterfly emerging from her pupa on the snag, like that magical feeling spreading out of my soul. But the dismal bog with black, and greasy-green, pools of water separated me from the snag. I noticed there were many other snags rising out of the dirty waters amid the dank growth of weeds and grasses. Why was everything so silent around me? Where did the sounds of the creatures of the night disappear?

  The feeble glimmer of the stars reflected in the gloomy pool. I had to part my cloak even more to let the bright ring of moonlight shine out of my body to see where I was going. I was acting against everything I had learned before, especially showing big amounts of my light into the night.

  The yellowish white light stemmed from my head to my feet as I started to advance into the bog. A sudden breeze from the night stirred one tussock after the other as I stepped between the slimly ponds and deadly quagmires.

  You shouldn’t be doing this…

  The butterfly’s screams became louder as I approached, and I saw it was the color of a sunflower, on its way to welcome the world with its first flutter of wings.

  It was beautiful. I was so close to touch it with my hands.

  Go back now before the sun shines!

  Suddenly, my foot tripped, and I was about to fall into the dirty swamp. I snatched at an overhanging branch of a nearby snag as I fell backwards. I gripped the branch and clung to it, trying to save myself from the fall. When I thought I had saved myself from falling into the swamp, I discovered that something was terribly wrong.

  You shouldn’t have come here.

  The tendrils in the bough whipped round my wrists like deceiving snakes around their prey. I resisted with all my might, but the tendrils acted as if they were alive, tightening hard on my wrists, and starting to cut through my flesh.

  Still struggling, my cloak fell back from my golden hair, and my light flooded the swamp. This wasn’t supposed to ever happen. My light was so bright I suspected it killed the newly born butterfly at such a close distance.

  As I lay there, shivering in the arms of the tendrils, neither fully submerged in the swamp nor capable of freeing myself, I saw the goblins approaching on the land. They hopped happily and clapped their hands, hailing the Queen of Sorrow.

  “I told you the butterfly trick would work,” one said to another.

  “The Queen will be so pleased with us. She hasn’t been able to catch one of the Lost Seven, let alone knowing who they were in the first place. All she was sure about was that the Moongirl was predicted to be one of them.”

  “Look at her,” a third one said as many of them approached. “She is beautiful. So bright.”

  “Don’t get too close to her light,” a fourth said. “It’s only slightly less dangerous than sunshine.”

  “And what now? How are we going to catch her?”

  “Soon enough she will drown or the sun will shine. Either way, she dies. That’s what matters. The queen wanted her dead or alive. I think it’s her body that matters,” another said as the first flickers of sunshine splayed on my face. I was going to die. The sun could kill me and turn me into moondust, and the nights in the Kingdom of Sorrow will stay black forever.

  What have I done?

  The more I resisted the tendrils the more they cut at my flesh and pulled me down to the swamp.

  “And then what, when she dies?” another goblin asked.

  “Our part ends here. The rest is Managarm’s, the Moonhood. He will collect her and bring her to the Queen of Sorrow in his blackened, flying coach.”

  “I guess we should be going then,” another goblin suggested. “I’m always so scared of Managarm. Such a vicious bea
st.” he followed, as if they weren’t horrible beasts themselves.

  Finally, when the sun shone brighter, I had to give in to the tendrils pulling me deep into the swamp. I was going to drown down there, but it was my only choice to buy some time before the sun dusted me away.

  I took a deep breath and sank backwards in the greasy, green water, held tight by the tendrils, still resisting, arching my back upward as if giving a painful birth to a child.

  You shouldn’t have been here. Foolish girl.

  I was struggling franticly now with more tendrils wrapping themselves around my body underwater, watching the bubbles coming out of my mouth while the sun shone beyond the water. The wavy water made the sun look like a hazy ball of fire. I didn’t think my light shone through the water anymore. When you’re dying, all light gives up on you, and all that remains is the light of the fire that will burn you.

  Is this how I’m going to end, the same night I thought I fell in love?

  Still caught by the cords in the muddy waters, I saw the hem of my white dress floating in front of my eyes.

  The air in my chest abandoned me, and opening my mouth wasn’t going to help. My chest felt like it was going to explode and I suddenly noticed I hadn’t been breathing for a while. My moonface must have been turning blue as my eyelids throbbing for one last time.

  There was no point in resisting anymore. Down here, I was going to die drowning, and up there, I was going to die burning. How ironic it was of the moon to die so far from home. Goodbye, my life.

  As I faded away, Jack’s necklace with its seashells floated in front of me. This time it glittered in blue…

  What was the use of this mystical necklace if I was still dying? Where was my other life? I didn’t mind turning into a frog right now, but nothing happened. Jack was right. His grandmother only told him lies.

  Jack Madly, I’m never going to see you again. You were right. Someone should write a book about us and call it Moon and Madly.

  I gave it one last shot and tried to kick the tendrils with my legs, but they were numb already. I wondered if the tendrils had eaten them away.

  A great intolerable pain hit the sides of my face, right above the cheeks. Was this how death felt? Did it have to be so painful? Why couldn’t I just go? Or was I paying for my sin of being a reckless moon?

  But that wasn’t the case. My cheeks were being cut in small lines. My backbone was hurting too, but it felt as if it was stretching. What was going on?

  The only thing I knew was that I should’ve been dead, but I wasn’t.

  I must be alive because I’m feeling so much pain.

  I found myself screaming underwater. Although muffled, it sounded like the butterfly’s aching minutes ago.

  My back hurt again, and I could feel my spinal cord changing underneath my flesh. The pain was sharp enough I had to bend my back upward and sink back with my head, deeper into the swamp.

  Finally, the cuts in my cheeks stopped, so did my screaming, and so did the pain in my back. The silence underwater was alarming as if I had been plugged out from the world.

  Was I dead? Was that it?

  “Ease up, girlie,” I heard a voice tell me although I didn’t know where it came from. I thought I had seen a girl in a red hood talking to me, but I wasn’t sure. “You’re not going to die. Your name didn’t show up in my cookie today, although I don’t know if I was supposed to kill the moon, too,” the girl’s voice said. “I’m starting to hate my job,” she uttered her final words and disappeared, promising that I wasn’t going to die?

  But how? And for what price?

  She was right. I wasn’t dead. I found myself inhaling deeply, filling my heart with oxygen underwater. If I had a mirror, I swear I was sure that I would have seen myself alive, as I had never been before.

  I was breathing underwater!

  But I wasn’t only breathing in from my mouth and nose. In fact, these two organs couldn’t have provided me with that kind and amount of oxygen. My heart felt as if it had grown bigger, and I felt taller but didn’t know how. All of this was because I was breathing from the three cuts in my cheeks. I had developed gills.

  The necklace kept glimmering in blue as I felt my spine being too flexible than normal. I hadn’t lived in human form a lot, but I surely knew its limitations. I was exceeding all of it.

  The thought hit me with a smile on my face. I was reborn underwater, given a second life because of the necklace. This time the necklace chose something beyond my imagination for me, something I didn’t believe existed.

  There was one last thing left to be sure. I tried to move my legs, and when I did, a broad smile filled my heart. I didn’t have legs. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the world being so happy they didn’t have legs.

  I had a fish’s tail, and I splashed it out and then into the water again. I couldn’t describe the excitement I was experiencing, so I kept on splashing, still tied by my wrists. The tendrils had stopped cutting through my flesh, as if they were taken by the purity of what I had become.

  I was reborn like the new butterfly, except I was turned into a mermaid.

  I didn’t know at the time if all mermaids were created that way, or maybe if I was the first, becoming the mother of mermaids. I only knew that I was saved, and that it was the closest I could be to become almost human, and not a moon anymore.

  Later, I freed myself from the tendrils and swam all day. Although it was a nasty swamp, I managed to find an opening that led to a cave, which led to the ocean. But I wasn’t ready for the big world of the ocean yet. I needed to swim back to meet Jack, who wanted to meet me by the lake.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell him that I was the girl from yesterday, and I couldn’t tell him I was the moon, and I couldn’t tell him I was a mermaid. Since his grandmother was right about the necklace, I believed her when she told Jack that you can’t say who you were in the previous life or you, and the one you tell, will die. The necklace itself proved to be of use only once. It dissolved into some underwater animal and I didn’t have it anymore.

  When the sun set the next day, I sat by the shore of the swamp, picking the cleanest spot I could, and started combing my hair. I had the ability to transform my tail into legs once I got on shore.

  When Jack came waiting for me, he found me by the rock, dressed in my white dress, the one he hadn’t seen yesterday – the black cloak had been shredded to pieces by the tendrils, and there were no goblins waiting for me when I surfaced. They must have thought that I was an dark enchantress, being able to disappear in the water. I wondered what punishment the Queen had bestowed upon them, and what Managarm had felt when he couldn’t catch me. He wouldn’t have even recognized me in my new life as a mermaid.

  “Excuse me,” Jack asked, looking sad. “Did you see a girl in a black cloak?”

  “In a black cloak?” I said. “What did she look like?” I was curious to know what he saw of me.

  “I… don’t really know,” Jack lowered his head. “She is very bright,” he said reluctantly, afraid that I didn’t understand.

  “Bright like a full moon?”

  “Wow,” Jack’s eyes widened, staring up at the moonless sky. “That must be it. I was so stupid,” he tapped the back of his head with his hand. “She was trying to tell me that she had something to do with the moon. That’s why she said she’d be safe if the moon shone back,” then he stopped, looking into nowhere. “But the moon is absent. I wonder if something bad happened to her.”

  I was tearing apart from inside when I saw him so concerned about me. My tongue almost slipped but I couldn’t risk both of us dying. There must be a way I could tell him what happened. I just had to stay alive to find it, and I had to keep him close to me and befriend him until then.

  But Jack seemed uninterested in the girl combing her hair by the rock. He hadn’t even tried to warn me of the Goblins like he did with me when I was the moon.

  “Well,” he said. “Sorry to bother you,” he started walking away. My hea
rt raced as he did.

  This can’t be it. I have to find a way to be near him.

  “Wait!” I said this time, instead of him. “What’s your name?”

  “Jack,” he said without turning around, and without telling that he was awesome and that someone should write a book about him. He looked lost, regretting he had let me gor yesterday.

  “Are you used to talking to people without knowing their names, Jack?” I said playfully.

  “Oh,” he looked embarrassed, still thinking about how he lost the Moongirl. “Sorry,” he tried his best to put a smile on his face. “I should have asked you. What’s your name?”

  I drew the biggest smile on my face because I knew exactly what to tell him. I knew what name would keep him close to me, at least out of curiosity, so someday I could find a way for us to be together as Moon and Madly.

  I took a deep breath, blinked, and then told him the name that would keep him interested in me with a big sigh of relief, “You can call me Marmalade.”

  End of Grimm Diary Prequel #8

  Author’s Notes:

  1) This prequel is basically based on my most favorite fairy tale of all time. It’s called the Buried Moon. I would love to write a whole series about it in the future. The idea of the moon being a girl, and that she was created to protect us from the creatures of the night is such so amusing to me.

  2) The Goblin Market is a reference to Christina Rossetti’s amazing poem by the same name. Although it’s insinuated with adult themes and feminism, I loved the idea of a Goblin Fruit. It will be mentioned more in the series, and of course, Pomona has something to do with it, too.

  3) I came up with names of Moon and Madly from a phrase in an E.E.Cummings poem. If you’ve read his poems, you’d know how creative he is with inventing words. His original phrase was ‘Mad And Moonly’.

  4) Jack stealing the devil’s hair is based on a fairy tale: The Devil's Three Golden Hairs. And it’s true, the devil’s mom helped Jack, but we’ll take a look at it later.