by Cameron Jace
Ironically, I was flying over to Venice to find the real Cinderella.
As I traveled from Germany to Venice, I was curious to see the corpse: an 800-year-old Italian witch, found by archeologists with seven nails driven to her jaw. Gruesome stuff. My perfect taste.
“Why seven nails?” I asked Bella, the Italian archeologist’s assistance. Bella was about twenty-four years old, seven years older than me, I was sure her name wasn’t Bella. Some of the investigators around the world preferred not to conceal their names form others. “No one really knows,” She said. “Nailing them in the jaw was what they used to do to European witches in that era.”
“You mean women who were accused of witchcraft,” I corrected her. Women had been burned, crucified, and killed for practicing things like playing a game of dice in ancient time. Tarot card and dice were considered witchcraft. I hate when someone called them witches because they weren't. “We all know these women were innocent.”
“Whatever,” Bella said absently as I noticed her wearing white gloves.
“What’s really interesting is that the skeleton was wrapped up in a shroud and nailed to the ground.”
“Any reason for that?” I wondered.
“Of course. It was a common believe to cover the body of a witch or a vampire in a shroud and nail it to the earth, so its spirit stays trapped and can’t wake up again.”
“Oh—“ I still couldn’t understand why they sent for me. They knew that I wasn’t here for this. My secret investigations were about discovering the truth about fairy tales. The stories my ancestors actually managed to alter.
“I’ll explain everything now, when the workers leave the site.” Bella said, pointing at the corpse wrapped in white sheets in its grave. She watched the other workers leaved the site.
Finally, Bella uncovered the corpse. I got a glimpse of why I was here …
I was looking at seventeen glass slippers surrounding the corpse.
“That’s odd.” I mumbled, kneeling down.
“See? Italian witches from the 12th and 13th century were usually surrounded by 17 dices. Dice was the game that women were forbidden to practice, and was conisdered a form of witchcraft.”
“Why seventeen?”
“Seventeen was considered bad luck. Don’t ask me why.”
“And what about the … glass shoes? Hmm.” I thought I knew why seventeen glass shoes surrounded the corpse, but I needed to know more to confirm my suspicions.
“That’s why you are here,” Bella announced. “These are 800-year-old glass slippers, astonishingly still looking brand new. I think it is her.”
“This is almost impossible. She should be buried Six Dreams Under,” I touched my lips with my finger. “If that’s her, then it’s starting, which is not good at all. Someone wanted us to find this. Someone is sending a message.”
“I don’t know why you’re surprised, Alice. It’s 2012,” Bella said. “And I don’t mean that bullshit about the Mayan discoveries about how the world ends. You know what I am talking about. We both know how the world might really end.” She shrugged.
“2012. Exactly two hundred years after the Brothers Grimm wrote The Children’s and the Household Tales,” I mumbled, staring at the glass shoes. “So it’s true? I didn’t spend my childhood chasing shadows?”
“I would have preferred if you spent your childhood watching Snow White and Cinderella movies and chased Prince Charming instead.”
“I tried to, believe me. Every time I watched the movies, knowing they were lies, I couldn’t bring myself to it."
“Philosopher much? Anyway, you did a great job so far.”
“You really think it’s her?” I raised an eyebrow. Part of me was frightened and the other part enchanted.
“Might be.”
“And how are we going to know?”
Suddenly, a smile curved itself on Bella’s full lips. She cocked her head at someone in the scene: A slender and fair boy with platinum-blonde hair.
“Who is he?” I wondered.
“Whoever he is, he is hot.” Bella winked, which confused me. Even though there was something so devilishly attractive about the boy, he looked much younger than she did. About my age.
“So he doesn’t have a name?” I mused. “Or is his last name 'hot'?” I loved gorgeous, slender boys with that unseen aura of trouble surrounding them, but I had a job to do.
“His name is actually interesting,” She said, not taking her eyes off him. “Blackstar. Loki Blackstar.”
“I don’t know which part I hate more. The Loki, or the Blackstar.”
Bella laughed, “You too could be a match made in hell—I mean heaven. We should introduce ourselves.”
“Shouldn’t a Loki have black hair?” I squinted, pretending the sun annoyed me while checking him out one more time.
“That’s like saying, 'Shouldn’t every girl be a princess?',” Bella commented. “We live in a world where we've discovered that fairy tales were altered. Why wouldn’t a Loki be blonde? Too blonde actually.”
Loki was standing in front of an old and dirty red Cadillac. I rubbed my eyes because I thought he just talked to it, and it wheeled back a little on its own. Then the radio was turned on suddenly without anyone touching it. It played an oldie tune: Red Cadillac and Black Moustache.
“Stop it.” Loki hissed at his car … and it stopped.
As he approached us, he was guiding other men to construct something around the corpse. They were pulling two huge mirrors along.
Looking over the corpse, Loki blocked his nose with one hand while gobbling on a greasy slice of pizza with the other.
“It doesn’t smell,” I commented. “It’s 800 years old.”
He didn’t acknowledge me, whatsoever.
“You’ve been pulp-fictioned my friend.” Loki barely whispered to himself, looking at the corpse while taking another bite.
“She is a witch,” Bella introduced herself. What a start. “You know back in the day, they were scared of the witch’s powers and abilities in Italy.”
“Yeah, I remember.” He muttered, still not looking at us. Yeah, I remember? “This one had rather a particular power,” He said. “She could make better pizza than the other Italian witches, and she bathed in Olive oil.”
Bella laughed. I didn’t find him funny, arrogance shone out of his green eyes. Bad metaphor, I know. Sue me. I am not a poet.
“A pretty bad way to kill and bury a competitor.” Bella commented.
“At lease they're not as bad as the Danish people,” He said, finishing the sandwich and throwing the wrapped foil recklessly into the grave. “You know they used to drink, dance, and eat around the corpse of the dead in the 17th century?”
“No shit.” I found myself blurting, not knowing why I said that. He got on my nerves. What did this guy even do?
Loki finally looked my way, neglecting Bella casually. He stared at me from top to bottom then licked his lips and some ketchup off his thumb. His stare was straight and sharp and unapologetic, but not in a weird and creepy way. Still, I scanned my head for a good comeback. I had the feeling he might say something insulting and silly.
“What do you think are three things about you that would make me want to know you better?” He took a step closer toward me, grabbed my hand, and put a small plastic bag in my palm. He did it swiftly and gently, like a magician. Somehow, any comeback I was about to spit back escaped me when he looked into my eyes. It was a short glance. One that I couldn't forget. Then he turned around to guide the men placing the mirrors.
They adjusted the two mirrors opposite to each other and perpendicular to the corpse.
“Who said I want you to want to know me?” I finally said over his shoulder. Bella omitted a laugh.
“What?” he said as he started drawing a circle pn the ground around the mirrors and the corpse. “I can’t hear you.”
I gritted my teeth, as I was sure he did.
“Who is this guy?” I asked Bella. “And what
is he doing exactly?”
“And what do Dreamhunters do?” I asked, folding my hands in front of me.
“The name is self-explanatory. What do you think a Lawnmower does? Oh yes,” he looked at the sky with his forefinger on his lips. “He flies a spaceship—I mean he mows a lawn,” he bent over and rested two Obol coins over the skeleton’s eye-sockets. I knew of these coins. One of them fell through the hole in the witch’s skull. “Oh. Sorry, wrong size,” Loki talked to the corpse, and pulled out a properly sized coin to put on the corpse’s eye again. This one fitted. Bella chuckled. “Awesome. Sorry. I thought you were coin-size 5. My bad.” He continued talking to the corpse.
“And why do we need a Dreamhunter?” I asked Bella.
“Dreamhunters are the only ones who can enter the dreams of immortals—” Bella explained.
“Usually with the purpose of killing them in their dreams.” Loki interrupted her as he stabbed the skeleton with a stake, still not looking at us. “You’re not immortal, are you?” He teased me.
Bella rolled her eyes. “If the skeleton belongs to whom we think she is, it means that she is immortal.”
“I don’t want to know, and I don’t care who she is, by the way.” Loki felt the need to interrupt again as he pulled out an egg timer like the one my used in the kitchen and a red fleece from his backpack. Who was this guy?
“Immortals don’t die,” Bella explained to me. “You know that, right?”
“Never?”
“Never,” Bella confirms. “The only way to kill them is in their sleep while they are dreaming.”
“Wow. How does that work?” I raised an eyebrow, pretending I didn’t know. The last time I was in my grand grand father’s dream, I have actually seen the Evil Queen herself.
“Dreamhunters, like Loki here—“ Bella said.
“Which are very rare.” He added as he stretched down on his back next to the skeleton.
“Dreamhunters have the ability to enter the dreams of the immortal. Sometimes, the immortals don’t know who they really are in their dreams. The Dreamhunter kills them in that dream. The immortal’s mind gets kinda hung up and paralyzed. Being killed in a dream could do that to you. And they will stay in a coma forever in real life. It’s the only way to kill an immortal.”
“But this witch was burned.” I remarked.
“Which proves that she died in her dreams,” Bella explains. “Or they could not have killed her in real life.”
“Still, she could be just someone who was wrongly accused of witchcraft in the 13th century like others,” I suggested. “How do we know she is an immortal?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out now when we enter her dreams.”
“She is dead. How can she be dreaming?”
“Believe me, she is dreaming. Immortal dreams are infinite and never stop as long as they are not awake in the real life.”
“If I am to believe that,” I considered. “You said that she could be someone else in her Dreamworld.”
“That’s usually true,” Loki interrupted again. “But the ritual I am using will send us right into a memory of hers. A memory within a dream.” Loki said. “It’s hard to explain. You have to experience it yourself,” Loki stretched out a hand toward me. “When you come down here and sleep with me.”
“What did you just say?” My face knotted.
“I didn’t mean it that way. What’s with girls not having anything on their minds but that?” He shook his head, and of course, Bella laughed. “Besides, if I want to sleep with you, would I want to do in a grave with a skeleton as a bed? Argh. I mean sleep as in really sleep. The snoring kind of the sleep.”
“I don’t snor.” I said.
“Yeah. I know. All girls don’t snor on the first night. The second night it’s a Bambi the elephant sleeping next to me. Anyway. Come, lay down with me—I mean next to me and this beautifully fried corpse.”
“How about you sleep with your skeleton girlfriend without me?” I attacked like a mad rabbit.
“He needs you with him,” Bella explained. “You’re the one who can identify her in the dream. He doesn’t know anything of what we do or what she looks like. It obvious that he isn’t interested. It’s part of your investigation.”
“Thank you,” Loki nodded at Bella. “What was your name again?”
“Bella.” She turned around abruptly to face him.
“Thank you, Bella. Sorry I didn’t ask for your name before. This beauty took the words out of my mouth.” He pointed at the corpse.
“That’s because you’re a jerk.” I interrupted him.
“And what is it about jerks you like so much?” He wondered.
“He is a jerk,” Bella whispered to me. “But if you want to know, you have to go with him.”
“Ok.” I nodded and climbed down the grave. “What should I do with this?” I asked him about the bag he gave me as I lay down on my back next to the corpse.
“Oh. That’s the magic dust. Give it to Bella,” he said. “All you have to do is pour some of it on our eyes when I tell you,” he explained to Bella. “This will put us to sleep into the dream. Then, this egg timer of mine will buzz in about thirty minutes. It will wake us up.”
“We can hear this stupid egg timer in the dream?” I wondered.
“Don’t make fun of my egg … timer,” He said. “And Bella, if we don’t wake up in thirty minutes fowhatever reason, you’ll have to smash one of the mirrors to break the connection with the Dreamworld.”
“Ok.” Bella said.
“But you have to do it without entering the Dream Temple, or you’ll be sucked into the dream, and I can barely take care of one girl. Ok?”
Bella nodded.
“Ready, Alice?” He tilted his head toward me as we lay on our backs with the corpse between us.
“How do you know my name?”
“It’s written in your beautiful eyes—”
“What?”
“On your necklace, I mean. Should we hold hands?” He stretched out his left hand.
“Is that necessarily?”
“I am afraid so. It’s the ritual's rules. In the past, we had to prick our fingers and kiss first, but they changed that and moved it to wedding ceremonies.”
“I can’t believe I am doing this.” I said as I stretched my hand. I lied again. I just needed Loki to help me locate Cinderella in the Dreamworld without him knowing.
“Yeah. That’s what girls always say in the beginning too.” He grabbed my hand firmly without hesitation. I liked it, but I didn't tell him.
Loki looked at the corpse irritatingly. “Thank God, we’re not really sleeping together, or this would have been a deadly Ménage à trois.”
“I swear if you don’t behave, I’ll kick your ass.”
“Better wait until we’re in the Dreamworld. Killing immortals in the Dreamworld is really fun. Just like in video games,” He said. “By the way, the fact that you could kick my ass is the first thing that makes me want to know you better. Keep up the good work. I might like you after all.” Even though his arrogance was unbearable, he smiled genuinely at me for the first time. “And now, I need a word that if I whisper into the corpse’s ears, it will remind her of where you want to go into her dream. It’s called an Incubator: a word that will trigger a certain memory in the dreamer’s mind.”
“Interesting,” I mused. “So we can actually get into a past memory of hers?”
“A bit of both. A memory and dream,” He said. “So what’s the word?”
I thought for a second, arguing with myself if I wanted to tell him that the word was Cinderella. This was who I was looking for. But no. That would be leading the corpse to what I wanted to know. Besides, this corpse wasn’t Cinderella. This corpse, if she was who I thought she was, could only tell us about the whereabouts of the real Cinderella who had been cursed and buried in a dream since long ago. It was my job to find her and help her.
My ancestors gave me that job me, to find the charact
ers we thought were only fairy tales and to remind them of who they really were before it got out of hand. We had only one chance to find them once every hundred years, starting from 1812, when my grand grand father wrote the tales.
“Murano.” I said. “Murano is the word.”
“Isn’t that an island near Venice?” he asked. “The one famous for manufacturing glass? They had the best glassblowers in the world, right?”
“So you’re not an airhead, huh.” I said.
Loki laughed. He had a magnificent laugh, one that I’d like to see and listen to in my dreams.
“Hey Bella,” he said. “Are you ready?”
Bella nodded impatiently. I suddenly got the feeling that she envied me, that she wanted to be with Loki in the grave.
“If the corpse snores while we are in her dream, shoot it.” Loki said. "I can’t stand snoring humans, dead or alive."
Bella stuck out her tongue at him. “What if you snore?”
“Easy. Shoot it.”
Bella laughed.
“It’s time for you to use the magic dust on us,” Loki said, “And by the way, did Edward and Jacob ever make out in that movie? Because I’ve been waiting for this to happen all the time.”
Then I went to sleep, entering an immortal’s dream, looking for the real Cinderella.
***
Time feels so real and present in here.
Entering the Dreamworld of an immortal seems too easy, I think. I just woke up, coughing, and lying on my back in what looks like an abandoned house. I smell cinder everywhere, as if someone is burning something nearby.
“Shhh,” Loki grips my hand, looking around suspiciously. “Rule number one in an immortal’s dream: Look for a killing weapon.” He whispers.
“I smell cinder,” I say, freeing myself from his grip. “Pick yourself some.” I stand up, and walk out of that abandoned building.
“And do what? Swallow it and puff out fire like a dragon?” He says as he follows me outside. “Hey you … uhm … what was your name again?”