by Cameron Jace
"A talk?" Fable cocked her head.
"A talk about what happened to you," Jack said in a brotherly way. Fable wished Axel cared for her this way. "You've been hiding for three months, and then you just show up. You will have to tell me where you have been, but later." He patted her on the cheek.
Fable didn't know where she had been those three months. She didn't even know why she was supposed to be here in the Dreamworld three months ago. She didn't even know how Jack knew her. She was caught in the magic of the moment.
"So what meeting are you talking about?" Fable asked as they almost came to a halt up in the sky.
"We have a plan to get Shew back from the Schloss," he said.
"We?" Fable grimaced, and as they stopped, a realization was about to hit her hard. So hard she thought she was going to faint and go back to the Waking World.
"Yes, we, Fable." Jack pulled a vine nearby and stopped the tree from climbing higher. They were in front of a vault made out of wood and crawling vines. Behind it, Fable could see a lot of large pumpkins used as chairs, and a whole magical place where Jack lived up in the sky. "Something is really wrong with you today." He ushered her inside. Her legs were numb. She prayed whatever she had just realized was a figment of her imagination.
Fable stepped into the place and saw silhouettes of other boys and girls behind the shimmering of candles and moonbeams pooling in from the sky. Something told her she shouldn't step in, that whatever revelation she was about to see would change her forever. She froze still, trying not to peek at the silhouettes to see who they were. Her poor eyesight was her greatest asset right now.
"What?" Jack said. "You haven't seen the Lost Seven before?"
"The Lost Seven?" She looked at him, her eyes moistening. Her mind was collecting all the incidents that led to this moment. All the memories that pointed at who she really was. She didn't know if she should feel honored or terrified. It somehow made sense why Carmilla pretended she was her foster mother now. But she wasn't ready to take the truth in. How in the world was that possible?
"Look who I found on the way," Jack said to the silhouettes of boys and girls. He pulled Fable closer and hugged her with one arm.
"The cute Fable. She is back!" Jack hailed. "Now we can discuss the plan, since all of the Lost Seven are present."
Fable's heart may have stopped for a few beats. She thought this couldn't be happening, that this must be the wrong dream. Someone must have tampered with the Dreamworld. How was she one of the Lost Seven?
But the surprises didn't stop there. Fable heard someone summoning her.
"Fable!" A girl stepped out of the dark. She was limping and was smeared with ashes. She put her blowpipe aside to take Fable in her arms. It wasn't that hard to assume it was Cerené. Fable kept staring at Cerené's hand, eyes wide and mouth open. How was that possible? How was Cerené alive? Wasn't this dream supposed to have happened after Loki chopped off Cerené's hands? What was going on?
27
The Queen's Diary
Angel arrived a few days later.
He was exhausted, spattered in blood, and his clothes were torn. There was no point in asking him about the details of his escape from his father's vampires, black panthers, and hunting ravens. Night Von Sorrow had sent an army of evil after him, and I was more than glad that Angel had made it to Murano, the best place on earth to escape Night Von Sorrow—but not for long.
There were rumors about a few vampires trying to enter Murano, enchanted with cloaks of invisibility to escape the mirrors of the island. But that hadn't been confirmed. What I did see with my own eyes were my father's soldiers, who faced no problems entering Murano, but I managed to hide in Amalie's house.
I took Angel in my arms. We kissed. It was normal to kiss each other's bloodstained lips by then.
A day later, at midnight, while it was rainy and heavy tides clashed at sea, we embarked the Pequod, Captain Ahab's ship. We made sure we were dressed poor enough to mingle with the other workers on the ship. We smeared our faces with cinder to look like we worked for glassblowers.
Soon enough, we found ourselves cleaning the floors of the ship. We were also given separate beds—Captain Ahab insisted on separating men's and women's beds—and slept the first night exhausted among tens of other poor workers on the lower deck. Only brief glances between me and Angel kept us together.
"Believe in me," were the words he always mouthed to me when he stood far away.
That night everyone spoke of Captain Ahab, who seemed to keep to himself in his room and never come out. Nevertheless, they called him the "Ungodly God," which never made sense to me. Stories about the captain's previous voyages and his ungodly craziness were told over and over again while we worked each day. Some admired him greatly, and others feared if he came out they'd be looking the devil in the eyes. I had to swallow my chuckles when I heard that, as I had met the devil and saw he was nothing but a poor impostor in a funny suit. I was also surprised when another worker on the boat confirmed what I had seen.
"The devil is nothing compared to Captain Ahab," the silver-toothed man with a tattoo on his face said. "You know what they say you have to do to sail along with Captain Ahab?" He was talking to all of us, including me and Angel, who preferred to act low key and pretend he was limping. Angel was a very strong man and didn't look meek like other workers, so he had to show a weak spot to camouflage his real identity. Still, they made him move the heavy barrels from deck to deck all day long.
"What do they say?" I asked the silver-toothed man. Angel shot me a brief look, worried about me mingling with the workers.
"That you have to sell your soul to him to stay on the ship," the man said. "Out on land they rarely call him Captain Ahab. They refer to him as 'Him,' the one and only."
"I heard he is a descendant of the Piper," another man said.
"You know the Piper?" I asked.
"But of course," an eye-patched man said. "Who doesn't know the man who plagued the world with his rats?"
"They say he is the Antichrist, and that he will end our world as we know it one day," a young boy said as he smoked some strange tobacco. "I think I like him."
"Why do you think he is a descendant of the Piper?" I said.
"The pipe, girl, the pipe in his mouth all day," the silver-toothed man said. I winced a little at his aggressiveness. Angel was silently observing from afar.
"He has a pipe?"
"The one he smokes all day," he said. "Although few people have ever seen him in the flesh, those who did confirmed the pipe. You can smell its tobacco looming like a ghost around the ship sometimes."
"You think he is a descendant of the Piper because he smokes a pipe?" The eye-patched man almost laughed at the silver-toothed man.
"No," the silver-toothed man growled. "The pipe isn't a pipe."
"The pipe isn't a pipe?" The young boy's eyes bulged.
"It's a flute," the silver-toothed man whispered. "The flute that may once have belonged to the Piper."
"He has a flute?" I asked.
"An enchanted one, they say," the smoking boy offered, although he had just questioned it. Whatever he smoked seemed to mess with his head. "They say it plays a rare melody that the Piper used to play centuries ago when he lured the children out of Hamlin. Captain Ahab uses it to lure the whales."
"Whales?" I knew the ship hunted whales, but I said it anyway.
"What do you think this ship does?" the silver-toothed man snarled. "Why do you think it accepts misfits like us on it? Because it's the only ship in the Seven Seas that hunts whales."
I wanted to ask about the whales again but held back, discouraged by the silver-toothed man.
"They say there is a treasure inside one of the whales," the second man offered. "It can make you the richest lad in the world."
"There is no treasure inside the whale, you fool," the silver-toothed man said. "The treasure you're talking about is in Treasure Island. A land that no one has found yet in the Seven Seas."
<
br /> "Nah," the young puffing boy said. "You're not getting it, old man. Treasure Island is on the back of a whale that Ahab is chasing. That's why no one has never found the island."
"An island on the back of a whale? Sounds like a myth," the silver-toothed man said, and gulped on some drink that looked like it was made of the dirty water we used to clean the ship's floor. "There is only one thing Captain Ahab is after inside the whale: a beautiful mermaid!" He rubbed his round belly.
"I would sell my soul to Him if there is a mermaid inside a whale." The boy dragged from his pipe.
"Are there such things as mermaids?" I asked. The conversation had piqued my curiosity, although Angel looked annoyed by it.
"You tell me." The silver-toothed man rolled his eyes. "Aren't you a girl? Shouldn't you know about mermaids?"
"They are real." The eye-patched man grinned. Was that seaweed between his teeth? "Mermaids are real. I swear I saw them while on the last ship I was on." He seemed afraid of them. "Oh, man. They look so beautiful. Beautiful bodies and lovely breasts. But beware, for they are devious."
"How devious?" asked the puffing boy.
The man knelt down, looked to his sides, and then whispered, "They surround ships and lure men with their looks, then they start to sing a song—some say it's the same tune the Piper played. That song weakens men and makes them vulnerable. That's when the mermaids turn into octopuses and monsters and eat the flesh of men, which is how they survive."
"I heard they turn into whales when they are fed enough," someone suggested.
"Nonsense," the silver-toothed man said. "Get me a mermaid and I will show you how beautiful they are." He gulped.
"If you want one, go sell your soul to Captain Ahab," the other man said, leaving me confused by the mysteries of the Seven Seas.
I raised my head and glanced at Angel. He nodded slightly with a barrel on his back, assuring me everything would be all right. Although I trusted him dearly, I didn't share the feeling. We were on a ship with a dark captain, and sooner or later we'd be hunting whales. Who hunted whales? Then there was the matter of us being practically lost at sea. We needed to start asking how to find the Tower of Tales, but we just didn't trust anyone on the ship so far. Those men I was talking to weren't reliable, and Angel stopped me from asking them. I really wished we knew what we were doing. All we benefited from this voyage was escaping the Karnsteins and the Sorrows. But here we were, about to face whales, a man who bought sailor's souls to look for treasures, and the possibility of monster mermaids.
The many thoughts reminded me of the sack I had been given by Cinder. I couldn't lose it, and those workers weren't trustworthy. Having it tucked under my bed every night wasn't the best way to hide it.
That night I briefly met Angel in the shades on the deck and handed it to him. He said he'd hide it in one of the barrels. After all, he was the one responsible for them and would know how to track it.
"Do you think we better open the sack?" I said. "There is no rule against it."
"Why would we do that, Carmilla?" Angel said.
"In case we lose it. At least we'd know what was inside and can tell Lady Shallot when we meet her. Maybe she'd forgive us then."
"We won't lose it, love," he said. "I promise you I'll find you a place to live and build a kingdom and make you the queen. Believe me, nothing will go wrong."
We kissed again under the moonlight. No blood present this time. Only the scent of fish and rotten cleaning water. I considered that progress.
"I believe in you, Angel," I told him, tiptoeing to his height. I knew he liked to hear it.
"What would I have been if I hadn't met you?" He held me dearly to his muscular frame.
As we stole a few moments, hiding in the shades of the night, I glanced up at the moon. For a moment, I thought it was smiling at me. But nah, that must have been my wild imagination.
28
That night I woke up to a sound I hadn't heard before in my life. It was like someone was singing, some kind of a lullaby, hissed and lightly chanted across the rippling surface of the water. I tried to ignore it at first, but the humming didn't stop. Strangely, it reminded me of myself in the cradle—faint and looming memories of kings and queens visiting me in Styria and asking for my blessing. How I ever recalled such a memory, I had no idea. And why did those melodies coming from the sea do this to me?
I rolled in my bed, still trying to ignore the lull outside. The other workers around me seemed asleep. I wondered how they didn't hear it. Was my sleep so light it only affected me, or were they afraid to admit they heard the melodies?
Stomping through the darkness of the ship, I headed outside to the deck. The night was unusually calm and the tides lay solemnly on the bed of the sea, reflecting the full moonbeams like glittering pearls. I bowed over the edge, mesmerized by the view. All alone, I wondered why no one was awake but me.
But I couldn't see what caused the melodies.
It occurred to me that no matter how much I tried to memorize the tune, I just couldn't, as if it were mercury slipping through the sensors in my ears. How was that possible? Was this the same melody they said the Piper played, the same tune Captain Ahab played? Was it the same tune I heard Night Von Sorrow play? Mozart's The Magic Flute?
Then I suddenly realized I couldn't remember Night Von Sorrow's tune until this very day. How was that possible, to listen to something and never remember it no matter what? I scratched my memory for it, but couldn't. It felt like words were on the tip of my tongue but still blocked from my mind.
My rumbling thoughts ended at the sight of something splashing in the water. I thought it was a dolphin at first—I hadn't seen a dolphin before. But then another splashed somewhere nearby. And another.
Then they showed me themselves, ever so slowly, rising from the water, whipping their hair at their cheeks, and then smiling at me.
Mermaids.
I hadn't seen one before, but I could see their fishtails waving underneath the water, lit by the moon in the sky. I was grateful the mermaids weren't close, so I didn't risk seeing my reflection in the water trying to look at them.
And oh, sweetness of heaven, how beautiful they were.
Their wavy hair was slung down over their breasts and their eyes were mostly green, visible even from far way. They weren't skinny or chubby. I thought they had the perfect female body. Their bare shoulders were broad, though, the way a frequent swimmer's body usually looked. Their fishtails looked greenish with spots of gold underneath the water, but it could have been the effect of the moon's beam.
"Come with us, Carmilla," one of them whispered, as they neared the edge of the ship. "Come with us. You belong to us."
"What?" I shook my head. I didn't expect them to talk. They had sweet female voices. You could tell they could sing extremely well.
"You don't belong here," another said, fiddling with her hair. "You belong with us…" She stopped then looked underneath her. "You belong down there."
"How do you know my name?" I asked.
"You're much more than you think you are." Another smiled, sincerely, seductively. "You are the one…"
Another one shushed her, clapping a finger on her lips. She seemed to be their leader: a little bigger, broader shoulders, thicker hair, and tattooed skin. She also looked a bit older than the rest, and her finger bore a pearl ring. "Let me show you." She neared, stretching out her hand.
At first, I was going to jump in the water with her. Her words and smile were enticing. I had never been tempted to follow anyone like her.
But then my fear of water stopped me. In my shock, I leaned away from the ship's rail, noticing a frail red fleece connecting all of then under the water. "I can't," I said. "I'm afraid of water. I'm not supposed to see my reflection in water."
"That's what they keep telling you." The mermaid showed a sad face. "They are using you for their own benefit."
"What do you mean?" I asked, clawing to the rail. I wanted so much to be with them. It was
ridiculous. "Who is using me?"
"All of them," she said. "Even Angel."
"You're lying!" I said.
"Then why do you think he never told you how you're not supposed to be together?"
"How do you know that?" I began to suspect they weren't benign mermaids. I looked to my left and right to make sure no one was listening. "We're descendants of two feuding families. That's why they don't want us to be together."
"That's all?" the leader said. She wasn't asking, but piquing my curiosity, enticing me to jump in.
"Do you know any other reason?" I found myself asking. I had always suspected things—why it really took Angel two years to come back to me, for instance.
"Come with us, beautiful," the mermaids chanted with open arms. "And we will tell you all you need to know."
I said nothing, but backed away. My curiosity wasn't strong enough to trust them.
"Don't you see how magnificent you are, Carmilla?" the leader continued. "You have stopped the plague of apples, which no one before was capable of. She is very proud of you."
"Who is proud of me?" I bowed forward again; the fumes coming from the sea were enchanting and cursing at the same time. Was I hallucinating these mermaids? I had heard about sailors going insane at sea.
"She who cursed your land in the first place," the mermaid said. "She wants to meet you." Her giggle didn't exude innocence this time, but some form of morbidity that I had never encountered before. The kind of smile that hurts, not mends.
I pushed the rail and stepped back immediately, stumbling backward on the ship's deck, and hoping this would be my last stand. Why had I been so hesitant? I didn't want to know about the nameless witch. And by no means did I want to meet her. Those mermaids were evil. The silver-toothed man was right.
Picking myself up from the floor, I ran to Angel's sleeping place, a small room at the bottom of the ship, surrounded by all the barrels of wine he lifted all day.
"Angel." I pounded his wooden door. It was fragile enough I could pound my way in, but I waited for Angel to answer me.