Blood Apples ( A Grimm Diaries Prequel #6 )

by Cameron Jace

  “OK? Why are you telling me this?” I wondered.

  “Because this is what you are experiencing. You’re in love with a girl you shouldn’t be in love with. You’re in love with a girl who will eventually hurt you, and others too, but you still risk your life to save her. If you’re destined to be together, she will repeatedly cause you trouble and hurt those you care for, but you’ll still be a slave to her love.”

  “Is that good?” I asked, starting to like Marmalade. Behind all that flirty, semi-naked girl, she seemed to have great insight.

  “It’s Adage,” She smiled with her heart-shaped curving lips. “Love doesn’t come more intense and fulfilling. It’s why people burn bright and the rest of the world withers to ashes because of their fire.”

  “Fire?” Jack seemed to consider. “It’s funny when you talk this way about fire, darling,” Jack told Marmalade.

  “I know,” She looked sad, lowering her head on his shoulder. I was really curious if she was a thief like Jack. She looked so otherworldly, though. “I shouldn’t be in love with fire.”

  “Why is that?” I asked, astonished by my involvement in the conversation when I had to save Snow White.

  “It’s a long story,” Jack shook his head. “Let’s go save a monster.” He changed the subject.

  Jack seeded his magic beans in the earth and then we waited for a while. The earth started to shake and rumble before his Beanstalk came out dancing like a dizzy snake, branched and leaves stretching into the air, all the way up.

  “I told you,” Jack smiled at me, noticing my amazement while looking up. “Someone has to write a book about me.”

  The three of us climbed up the spiral tree. Looking down, I could see the angry Rapunzel plants trying to reach out for us, but we were far enough and safe. This was going to be one hell of an adventure.

  Jack instructed Marmalade to climb before us and talk to Rapunzel after he used his magic harp to summon her out. We listened to Marmalade sympathizing with Rapunzel and telling her how beautiful she was. She even told Rapunzel that she was the most beautiful girl in the world. I couldn’t confirm that because I couldn’t see Rapunzel, hiding beneath the green leaves. Then Rapunzel complained about how impossible it was to comb her long hair. Marmalade offered her a magic comb that did the job. Rapunzel started using it and she fell inward into the tower, not uttering a word.

  “What kind of comb was that?” I asked Jack.

  “A poisonous one,” Jack answered, climbing up as Marmalade had already jumped into the tower.

  “Where did you get from?” I climbed after him.

  “Property of the Queen of Sorrow as well,” He answered. “She is pretty fond of stuff like that.”

  “And the apple?” I asked.

  “I decided to use the comb trick first,” Jack said. “So we could spare the apple for something else. Now it’s time you get inside and take hold of your girl before she bites mine.” He said and jumped inside, still playing his harp which put the crows to sleep.

  I jumped after him through the window, but I couldn’t find Snow White in the cozy and dimly lit, round room.

  I saw Jack nailing a wooden coffin and making sure it’s shut.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled. “Is Snow White inside this coffin?”

  “You know she is,” Jack said firmly. “And you know what she is. They kept her in the coffin so they can have control over her, and so shall we.”

  “But no,” I said. “She is not like that with me. Just open the coffin and you’ll understand.”

  “Understand what?” Jack approached me and brushed away my long hair, showing the bites marks on my neck. “This? You’ve let her feed on you and now you’re under her spell. That’s all.”

  “It’s not like that, believe me.” I pleaded, desperately wanting to lay my eyes on Snow White.

  “It’s Adage,” Marmalade’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t explain it to Jack. He will not understand.” She told me.

  “Ok, lovebirds,” Jack said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll pull this coffin, unopened, down and hand it to you, Prince Charming. You give me my gold, and you take the coffin with your monster inside and have your ‘own scary ever after’. Are we clear?”

  “Hello?” A sweet, soft, and innocent voice called from inside the coffin all of a sudden. It was her, the light of my life, Snow White. “Is anyone out there?” She asked.

  Jack snapped back for a moment, staring at the coffin. It wasn’t Snow White being alive that shocked him. It was how childish and sweet she sounded.

  “That’s no sound of a monster.” Marmalade said, kneeling down to the coffin, touching it with her nimble hands as if wishing it were glass so she could see through.

  “I am here, my love,” I said. “I came to save you.”

  “Prince?” Snow White wondered. Her voice was enchanting like when she used to sing in the forest when she were a kid, when birds and squirrels gathered around to listen to her.

  “It’s me,” I nodded, noticing Marmalade’s eyes moistening to Snow’s heartbreaking sound, wondering if the world could have been harsh on a young girl who wasn’t a monster at all.

  “You came here for me?” Snow White asked me.

  “Always,” I said. I could hear her sigh of relief and appreciation from inside.

  “Can you please let me out?” She asked, sounding like a girl asking me politely to do her a favor, like lifting her up to ride a horse.

  “No!” Jack interrupted. “It’s a trick. I’ve seen this before with Peter Pan’s girl. They all sound so sweet in the beginning.”

  “Let her out,” Marmalade pleaded to Jack.

  “I can’t breathe,” Snow White whispered in a thinner voice from inside the closed coffin.

  “I said no,” Jack was firm, staring at me, too.

  I couldn’t argue with Jack, because the truth was that I knew what kind of monster she could be. What if she killed Jack and Marmalade now? I needed them to help me on the way back. It was alarming how my intention and thoughts changed when I was around Snow White. I could’ve killed for her by only hearing her voice.

  I wanted so much to talk to her and hold her in my arms, but suddenly we heard a huge thud on the tree outside.

  “Fee-fi-fo-fum!” Someone, or rather something, growled in a deafening voice.

  “What was that?” I winced.

  “Not again,” Marmalade shook her head.

  “What you mean?” I wondered as the sound came closer.

  “It’s a…” Jack seemed hesitated. “A troll.”

  “This awful loud sound came from a troll?” I asked.

  “He has a big mouth,” Jack said. It showed on his face that he was lying.

  “What is it, Jack?” I insisted.

  “A big troll,” Jack said.

  “How big?” I asked, and another thud shook the Beanstalk outside.

  “That big,” Jack answered. “We have to move back to the tree. Now!”

  We pulled the coffin out and got back on the Beanstalk, following the path Jack took, high enough to pass through the clouds.

  It was such a beautiful place up there, so peaceful and silent. If only we weren’t being hunted by some secret huge friend of Jack’s we could have stayed here for a while.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Walk on the clouds,” Jack screamed back, holding on to the front of the coffin behind his back. “It works as long as you don’t look down.”

  I did as he said and we walked on the clouds, presumably to another tree that should’ve taken us back down. As we started running, I could see a huge shadow casting itself on the clouds. It was that thing which hunted us, thumping on the clouds, turning them into rain falling down on the world. That thing started summoning Jack.

  “What did you do to that thing?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack yelled. “You know it’s big. I am small. So it doesn’t like me very much.”

  “What explanation is that? I think you st
ole from it.”

  “Why do keep asking—“ Jack turned back to me with angry eyes, but then he suddenly stopped, looking over my shoulder.

  “Oh my—“ Jack shrieked. “It’s too close. We’re not going to make it if we keep pulling this heavy coffin.”

  “What do you mean? I am not giving up on the coffin. If you want us to run, release Snow White and she will run with us.”

  “Nice trick,” Jack said. “Never going to do that, but I got a better idea.” He said, and nodded at Marmalade.

  I didn’t understand what was going on, but Marmalade held me gently by the shoulder and told me to trust her as she pushed the coffin over the clouds, back down to earth.

  “Noooo!” I screamed as Jack stopped me from jumping after it.

  “Marmalade will take care of it,” He said.

  I saw Marmalade turn into what I suspected she was from the beginning: a Mermaid. Her look stole the breath from my lungs, but I didn’t have time to appreciate her beauty. She held my head with her hands and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry,” She said. “Snow White will be safe with me.” Then she went and kissed Jack.

  “I love you,” He told her, and slapped her slightly on the fishy butt. “I love your behind, girl,” He mumbled.

  “I will keep her safe with me,” She turned to talk to me. “Where should I tell her to meet you?”

  I was speechless, confused by all that was happening.

  “Tell her to meet him by the Avalon Tree in the forest,” Jack suggested. I nodded helplessly. “I can’t think of a better place for them to reunite but where the goddess Pomona herself lives.”

  “Stay strong,” Marmalade told me, squeezing my hand before jumping off the cloud down the sky as if diving into familiar waters. Even though I didn’t know a lot about mermaids, I couldn’t imagine any arms safer than Marmalade’s to protect Snow White.

  “Now it’s time to run away before that nasty big thing kills us,” Jack said and we started running away.

  “Couldn’t Marmalade take us with her?” I wondered.

  “Don’t be greedy, Prince Charming,” Jack said over his shoulder. “She has to take care of your girl and that’s a lot.”

  “So you and Marmalade are lovers?”

  “Not always,” Jack said, jumping over a hedge in the clouds. The giant troll seemed to be farther now.

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “It means she lives in the water and I live in the clouds,” Jack said. “It’s like a long distance relationship, so whenever we can meet on earth, we’re together. Other than that, she can do whatever pleases her. Pretty romantic, right?”

  “Didn’t take you for a romantic boy,” I commented.

  “I’m not. I just know what romance is. There is a difference.”

  “Why the hell does a girl like Marmalade even love you?” I said, panting.

  “It’s the green hat. Girls always go after the hat.”

  “You’re unbearable,” I shook my head.

  “Oh. It’s the beans? Not the hat?”

  “Nevermind, Jack.”

  “I told you I love you when you say that,” Jack stopped at another Beanstalk. “Now it’s time to climb down.”

  “And what about the big troll? Will he follow us down there?” I asked, climbing down after Jack.

  “That’s why we must burn the tree once we get down.”

  At the base of the tree, Jack actually lit it on fire and took my by hand to some cave where tens of children resided. They all looked poor and covered in dirt, and they hugged Jack once they saw him. I stood by the entrance, rolling my eyes. Who was that boy, really?

  “So you steal for the poor children?” I had to ask after Jack played with the kids for a while.

  “Not just the kids,” Jack smirked. “Sometimes I steal for the dead.”

  “The dead?”

  “How many dead people do you know who have had they lives stolen by others? I don’t just steal for the poor. Sometimes, I bring things back to the sons and daughters of the now-dead,” Jack stopped, adjusting his hat. “Well, sometimes I steal for myself. Now, if you don’t mind, you shouldn’t be here. You have a monster to meet under the Avalon Tree.”

  “You’re not coming with me?” I wondered.

  “I am not fond of monster girls. I like them naked and wet.”

  “And don’t you want your gold?”

  “I am sure you’ll bring it to me once you meet with Snow White. Or I’ll have to steal your parents’ castle. Now go, loverboy.”

  I left Jack’s cave and walked through the dark of the forest, thinking about Snow White all the way. It seemed like a miracle that I had saved her from the Queen’s prison in the tower. Was it possible that I would finally meet with her again?

  As I walked, tired and thirsty, through the forest I wondered about what Jack had said. Was I evil, being in love with Snow White? I didn’t know, but the golden apples in the forest answered that question for me, shimmering in the night. I thought it was a great sign, encouraging me to keep on going even though I was really tired.

  In the distance, I saw the Avalon Tree glittering in the dark, and I wondered if I had arrived too soon before Snow White.

  But when I came closer I found out that I was late enough to lose her. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I approached the glass coffin in the middle of the forest. It was another coffin than the one she was trapped in, and I understood that so so much happened while I was away from. But really happened to her?

  The glass coffin was half-filled with water, and Snow White floated inside, breathless, pale, and silent.

  I sank to my knees next to her, wondering what had happened. Looking around, I found no one. There were only thousands of red petals falling from the sky as if someone had just murdered a thousand roses.

  Reaching for Snow White’s dead face, I saw red liquid trickling down from her lips. Even though she was dead, and it wasn’t appropriate to want to kiss her, I decided I would. I was doomed anyway, left without the girl I loved, whether she was a monster or an angel, I was left alone to die a slow and boring death without her.

  I bent down and tasted her lips for one last time, still wondering how she died. Did Marmalade deceive us after all?

  As I tasted Snow White’s blood red lips, I discovered that the red liquid trickling down her cheeks wasn’t blood. It was the juice from the inside of a poisoned apple, like the one Jack had showed me.

  But who did that to Snow White? Who gave her that apple? Why did she even take it?

  Wait.

  I was too late.

  I had poisoned myself as well by kissing her, and now I was destined to lay dead beside her. The world started to dim around me, blackening into oblivion, and I didn’t know if I should feel betrayed by whomever poisoned us both or be glad to be with my dead lover. But maybe that wasn’t that bad. Maybe I’ll end up with the girl I loved in a better world where apples were red and sweet, and love was not surmounted by good and evil. Love was just love, not caring about who you were because once it found you, it changed everything.

  That last thought painted smiling lips on my face as I sprawled down on the ground, dying in peace.

  As I lay on my back, an angel was staring back. I thought I died and came back to life again. The angel’s white light filled the space around me, and she looked at me tentatively the way mothers look at their children. When I sat up, I saw that she stood in front of the Avalon Tree. In fact, she looked a beautiful ghost who’d just came from the tree itself.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Pomona,” She answered with serene eyes. I had never seen her before.

  “So I am not dead?” I wondered.

  “You were,” She nodded. “But now you’re resurrected.”

  “How so?” I had to ask.

  “The poison in the apples didn’t last long enough for you to die. You were much stronger than that.”

  “So Snow White didn’t die too?” I wondered.
<
br />   “It’s complicated,” Pomona said. “Snow White was poisoned by the Queen of Sorrow. She disguised herself as an old hag and gave Snow White one of the poisoned apples while Snow White was waiting for you here.”

  “So it’s my fault. I was late—“

  “Not your fault, son,” Pomona said calmly. “The Queen knew the poison will only put Snow White to sleep, long enough to come back again with her huntsmen to imprison Snow White again. But then you showed up and thought she were dead and kissed her. Unfortunately, the poison put you into a breathless sleep. It’s the effect of the apple. It makes you look like you’re dead when you’re only in deep sleep.”

  “But why didn’t Snow White wake up?” I asked, staring at her in the glass coffin.

  “She did, my son,” Pomona nodded. “But she thought you were dead and…”

  “And what?”

  “She decided that living without you wasn’t worth it, and she wanted to be with you,” Pomona said. She was the first women to acknowledge Snow White’s love for me without calling her a monster. “So she stabbed herself with a sword, killing herself, wanting to be with you in the afterlife.”

  “She did that for me?” I was never sure of Snow White’s feelings.

  Pomona nodded.

  “But I thought she was immortal. How did she die?” I touched Snow White’s cold and pale face. Her body was floating in the coffin with a sword stabbed in her heart.

  “Not when stabbed in the heart,” Pomona said.

  “So she’s gone?”

  “Forever,” Pomona said. “You’re a young prince and could have a great life. I suggest you forget about her and ride back to your kingdom, and cherish the memory of her. It would be foolish if you tried to kill yourself to be with her because I don’t think she is in a good place now. Use the power of your love for her to do something good in the world.”

  “I thought I’d spend my life with her,” I mumbled to myself.

  “She’ll always be there with you in your heart,” Pomona explained.

  “How do you know that?” I almost snapped at her.