by Cameron Jace
Snow White Blood Red
A Grimm Diaries Prequel
A teaser story for the upcoming release of
The Grimm Diaries Series
by Cameron Jace
Copyright © 2012 Akmal Eldin Farouk Ali Shebl
http://Cameronjace.blogspot.com
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events,
locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
“This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, except only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.”
Neil Gaiman
Prologue
for the Grimm Diaries series
It’s unknown to the common human being that most of the characters in fairy tales are real immortals living among us. Some of them know who they are and some of them don’t. Living too long can make you forget who you really are and what you were meant to be.
They lived before you were born, and will continue to live after you die. That is why they are carved in the inner skeletons of your soul like a birthmark. The fact that you have been introduced to them in books does not mean they didn’t exist in your dreams since long ago.
The immortals dream when asleep like humans. When you keep dreaming for eternity, each dream manifests a world of its own.
Every immortal’s dream intertwined with another’s for centuries, creating mountains, continents, real people, and wars in a world of their own imagination. All the dreams in the world gather in one realm. They called it the Dreamworld, where the dreamer could become someone else entirely.
What better way to kill time in a boring eternity than dreaming new dreams every night.
But the Dreamworld was not all fun and dreams. There was a catch: If immortals were killed in the Dreamworld, they never woke up again in the real world. They stayed trapped in an identity that was not theirs in a dream of their own while their real bodies in the real world suffered from an eternal coma.
Coma and eternity? Nah. Not exactly what they’ve been looking for.
After centuries of eternal sunshine and endless living, even a short-lived human could put an immortal to an eternal sleep. The Brothers Grimm called it the Sleeping Death, which they mentioned briefly in the original script of the Snow White so-called fairy tale.
All the human had to do was to find a way to enter the dreams of the immortals and kill them before they wake up. Those humans who possessed the talent were called Dreamhunters.
Long ago, the immortal fairy tale characters built themselves a realm of their own inside the Dreamworld and called it Jawigi – there was a reason for choosing this name but I won’t get into it right now.
The Jawigi was used differently from the Dreamworld. The immortals buried the true fairy tales and stories in the Jawigi; the truth about fairy tales that the Brothers Grimm and other writers had forged intentionally in their books – I am not allowed to discuss with you why they did that.
What better place to bury the truth of the immortal fairy tale characters than the dreams of immortals.
Why did they do this? What didn’t they want us to know?
There were certain elements in the tales that needed to be hidden or an imminent evil would rise from its darkened prison and end the world we live in. What we thought of as fairy tales was real, what was real was never told accurately, and that which was never told was buried in dreams.
It was the only way for everyone to live happily ever after.
But the Jawigi, like in the Dreamworld, wasn’t all secrets and dreams. There was also a catch: What happened in the Jawigi affected our real life.
If one certain fairy tale was altered in the Jawigi by dreaming it all over again and manipulating its incidents, it had its consequences in the lives humans lived. If dreams were altered, darkness would find a way out from the Dreamworld right into your living room in the real world.
There was a fairy tale war between the characters who protected the tales and those who wanted to alter the tales. Thus, affect our real world. Each of them had their own reasons, be it good or evil – but the line between good and evil was thin and blurry.
Altering and retelling which once was untold in the Jawigi was only possible for a period of time, It occurred once every one hundred years, starting from the day the fairy tale characters were first buried in their dreams. The year was 1812, when the Brothers Grimm wrote their first fairy tale collection – I mean, forged their first fairy tale book.
Every one hundred years, the Dreamworld was exposed to the possibility to be altered and rewritten all over again.
At the end of the alteration period, and in spite of whoever won the war, the new tales in the Dreamworld had to be documented so the new truth can be remembered for the next hundred years. Think of the documentation of dreams like your foretold fate in real life, except you had the right to change fate every one hundred years if you ever lived that long.
The new dreams were documented in diaries, written by many different fairytale characters. In fiction, they call this technique epistolary, where every character told the story from their point of view, and it was up to you to judge and gather the pieces.
The diaries were called the Grimm Diaries.
Each Grimm Diary was not your usual pen and paper diary. It was a Book of Sand, an exquisite kind of celestial book. Its pages were not made of paper but of sand. Only an immortal could write in it, using a magic wand that shaped letters on the page the way you stick-shape castles in the sand. Each entry could not be re-written in the span of another hundred years, because once the immortal wrote their thoughts and confessions the pages turned into unreadable sand for protection.
Each diary exposed part of what the Brothers Grimm didn’t want you to know – for your own good actually.
It’s been two hundred years now since 1812. The Dreamworld is open for change for another fifty years. It’s my hope that it won’t be a great and vicious war this time, for what happened in 1912 was unimaginable.
The first diary in the Grimm Diaries was called Snow White Sorrow, one of seven full-length diaries.
The diaries were fun reads with an adolescence spirit since most of the writers were teens – did you ever notice that most of the fairy tale characters were young?
You don’t have to fetch for every symbolic meaning in its pages though. It’s like the original Brothers Grimm scripts: it makes a lovely bedtime story, but for the trained and keen eye, the truth lies somewhere between the lines. So if you don’t get things in the beginning, stay cool and enjoy the ride.
I remember those who knew about the diaries a hundred years ago, ended up rereading the original scripts of the fairy tales and other historical books to confirm the facts told centuries ago, because the diaries claim that the world, and literature, is connected in a unique and unimaginable way. Each book ever written, and which I assume you have read, was hinting to bits and pieces of the truth about the tales.
Before you read the fully detailed diaries, I thought I’d show you a number of mini-diaries I found scattered and lost in the sandy pages of here and there, like a seashell left abandoned on the shore while keeping great sec
rets inside it but no one cared to pick it up and listen. The mini diaries won’t give away the main story but it will give you a hint of what the Grimm Diaries are about.
I called them the Grimm Diaries Prequels.
Finally, remember that what you read in the Grimm Diaries Prequels is not necessarily the truth since some characters will still want to alter it and protect themselves. It will be up to you to read between the lines. The road is long and fun.
If you’re wondering about me. They call me Sandman Grimm, the keeper and collector of fairy tale dreams from the Dreamworld – which are buried in your dreams too. My job is to collect and seal the dreams every one hundred years.
By leaking the Grimm Diaries Prequels, I will be punished, but I had to let you read them for there are bigger dangers at stake.
Eventually, I have to say my last goodbye since you will never meet again.
Sandman Grimm
Snow White Blood Red
A Grimm Diaries Prequel
as told by
the Snow White Queen
Have you ever wondered why I was called the Evil Queen and never had a real name? Do you know that truth only comes with names, and that you only hold power over those you know of their true names?
I have always wondered why you never asked about my name. Was I so superficial to you? So stereotypical and mundane? Why did you treat me as if I were just the monster of the week?
You know what I think? You never had the time to really hate me. You wanted to hate me long before you even met me. You wanted to scrape my existence and avenge your childhood princess by laying all blame on me.
What if they didn’t call me the Evil Queen, what if the story was told from my point of view instead of hers, would you ever think of me as an angel? Could I ever make you care about me? Would you ever think that you could have been me?
I know that deep inside of you, in the very core of your heart – and I know a lot about hearts –, you adore me. You’re just scared like the others, afraid to admit how much you love the Snow White Queen.
But I don’t need your love, because I am loved by the greatest and most majestic heart in the world.
Mine.
The last time I had a little chat with me in the mirror, I decided I should uncover the snow burying the truth of the tale. If she managed to fool the world for two hundred years, it was time for me to splay some sunshine onto the fairylands and melt the snow white lies to uncover the truth. Not everything that is white is pure and not every girl that is young and beautiful is not a monster.
In the coming few pages, I intend to clear a couple of misunderstandings …
There is a common lie that I am not her mother; that I am just some loony, jealous, and insecure stepmother who deceived a king into marrying her so she can share the throne and become queen. A queen obsessed with her long-gone beauty, being jealous of a young giddy and helpless brat. To be honest – and honesty is not my fairest charm –, I might have been worse. A lot worse. I might have danced with mischievous faeries too near to the dark side of the moon. I might have ushered young butterflies to the deceiving light of fire. I might have slaughtered and slithered, tortured and burned, laced and suffocated, combed and killed, poisoned tongues, ripped out hearts, and ate blood-apples topped with chocolate syrup and fluid milk. But you know what? I am not even half the evil that she is made of. Beautiful evil.
If I were not her mother, why do you think the Brothers Grimm altered the version of the tale between 1812 and 1857? In the first version of the so-called fairy tale, they addressed me as her mother, but fifty-five years later, the two German brothers changed my character to a stepmother. I know you’d call me a liar but why don’t you do yourself a favor and reread the books of history before you stone me to death and spit fire like dragons at the my majesty.
And, oh lord, then came out the Disney version of the tale, and they made a stereotypical puppet out of me; a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil, without soul, needs, or motives.
Did you know that the scene where I transform into that ugly witch was based on Nosferatu, the oldest vampire in German cinema?
I won’t waste my time with that fact right now – you’re not ready for the truth.
At least, the Brothers Grimm claimed that changing my character into a stepmother was to tone down the dark and violent tale. As much as I didn’t like it, I agreed with them. I understand why they altered and forged the Snow White tale. It had to be done for saving the world.
Still, the thought always crossed my mind:
If I swore on Books of Sand and Mirrors of pure enchanting light, would you believe me? Will you at least try to understand why I did what I did?
-- Which is not what you think I did.
Before I tell you about her and what she really is, let me tell you about the last time I met with Jacob Carl Grimm, the teller of the Snow White tale on December 16, 1859, in Steinau, Germany.
It was right before he died in a cottage in the middle of a forest. Even on his dying bed, he surrounded himself with elements of the tale. He spent the last days of his life isolated and alone, dealing with his demons and trying to solve the puzzle.
“Let me help you,” I offered, standing by his bed, stretching out my hand. “I could make you live forever.”
“Who wants to live forever?” He moaned in pain, lying on his back. For a mortal man, his words were kind of insulting. People who lived forever like me would love to believe that short-lived humans envy them, but Jacob didn’t. “And why would you want me to live forever? We’ve not been quite on the same side of the war.”
“Oh. Jacob. I am just afraid that when you die, the truth just dies with you forever.” I sat next to him, watching his face dimming under the candlelight. Even beneath the orange and yellow flicker, his face was expressionless and unreadable, keeping too many secrets from me. “Not that I want all of the truth to be revealed to the world,” I explained. “Just a little of it,” I said, narrowing my index and thumb fingers together while pursing lips teasingly. “I want them to know the part about Snow White. The real part.” I hissed.
Jacob didn’t reply.
“Ah, Jacob,” I sighed, looking at two mirror coins in the palm of my hand and fiddling with them. “Can’t you see what they have done to our tale? Did you hear about that Disney movie they are about to make the future? I saw it in a fortune telling Chrystal ball.”
“No,” Jacob coughed. “But I heard about how in the future they will have the tools to forge the best of tales. I wish I had those when I altered the fairy tales in my books.” Jacob said regretfully, not for he didn’t have the tools but somehow regretting he had altered the tales.
“I’ll be looking awful in that movie. How are they going to portray my beauty?” I said, rolling my eyes then breathing into my nails. “You know what a movie is, right?”
“Not really. I am not into caring about the future.”
“But of course. Why would you care about a future that you have forged its past?” I smirked at him but he didn’t get my message. “It’s a disgrace,” I elaborated. “Even Snow White is portrayed so wrong. What have they done to her? This is nowhere close to who she really is. What she really is. All but being a master of faking her clichéd innocence all the time. They call me the Evil Queen without even knowing my real name for mirror’s sake.”
“Don’t swear in the name of mirrors.” He warned me, unable to raise a finger from the pain.
“Why, Jacob?” I leaned a little forward, enchanted by the smell of death on his breath. Believe me, I know about the dying smell. I had it linger on my blood-bathed skin too many times for too many years. “Are you afraid of who is in my mirror? Are you afraid of her?” I wasn’t talking about Snow White. I was talking about the woman in the mirror. The woman I fear uttering her name sometimes.
“She is pure evil. You know that. And maybe if you have never met with her, things would have changed.”
“Can you say her name?”
I leaned closer and closer, amused by the glimmer of fear in his eyes. Fear had that paradoxical quality in people’s eyes. It made the eyes glimmer and the hearts flutter, but for the wrong reasons. “Are you afraid to utter the name of the woman in my mirror, Jacob?” I laughed and leaned back as I knew he wouldn’t dare to say her name. “Don’t you wonder why they will never mention the name of the woman in the mirror in the Disney movie when it comes out?”
Jacob stared with appalled eyes at me. She really scared him, that woman in my mirror whom I love and hate equally. “No one cares anymore,” I sighed. “It’s all about Snow White, and the rest are merely second-hand actors in a bedtime tale. That woman in the mirror played a pivotal role in the story, Jacob. Let me utter her name, only once. I promise I will not utter it three times.” I teased him again. It really made me feel good when I teased the dying on their bed. You have to admit that I am more entertaining than that Grim Reaper. I’d like to consider myself the Grimm Reaper.
“Not in my house,” Jacob said finally. “Don’t you ever dare mentioning her in my house.”
“Wow. The cottage is your house now? You know whose house it is, Jacob. It’s their house—”
I couldn’t finish my sentence as he finally managed to raise an old and stiff finger at me. For a mortal, Jacob could be intimidating sometimes.
“Ok. As if we really know who the seven of them are.”
“I figured out three of them.” Jacob teased me now, for he knew how I’d die to know the identities of those we call the Lost Seven whom Jacob and his brother turned into dwarfs in the book – dwarves my fairy butt. And what really bugged me is that people believed it.
“You can’t handle not knowing who they are, can you?” Jacob grinned at me. I still liked it when the dying grinned. Cute. “Besides, we don’t want anyone to know your real name,” Jacob eyed me daringly, even on his bed of death. “Don’t you agree?”
I nodded. Why would I want the world to know my name after all these years? Leave my name alone. Let it pass by their reading-eyes whenever they come upon it in books or hear it in movies without them knowing that she is me. I didn’t see those movies myself by then, but the fact that world will advance was foretold to us.