“What about the thorn bush?” Shew said reluctantly.

“What about it? We’re locals, not intruders. It will see us as friends, not enemies. We’ll pass. It’s just a little scratch. You’ll bleed, but not too much. Look!” Cerené pulled up the bottom of her dress and showed multiple scratches on her thighs. There were a lot and Cerené had just realized just how many by showing them to Shew. Some wounds never show, not even in the mirror, until we see them in the expressions on the faces of people we love. “Wow, that’s a lot of wounds,” Cerené uttered and laughed out of discomfort.

Shew wondered if this was the right time to ask her about her wounds.

It wasn’t.

Cerené was too happy with her magical adventure, and Shew didn’t want to spoil it for her.

 “All right,” Shew nodded hesitantly. “Let’s do it.”

A while later, Cerené walked through the Wall of Thorns like a ghost through a curtain. She was tiny and thin—Shew believed she’d become so used to pain that the thorns scratching her body didn’t mean anything to her. She watched trickles of blood dripping from under Cerené’s dress before she disappeared behind the bushes into the Field of Dreams.

“See? I am here already,” Cerené said from behind the bushes.

Shew couldn’t see her. She only saw a magnificent light peering through from behind the bushes. In her mind, the light had no certain color. It was like nothing she’d even seen before. It was just magnificent.

A first reluctant step drew Shew closer to the thorn bush. The first cut was the deepest. The thorns sliced through her white and expensive dress and stained it with blood immediately. It was as if her dress craved blood.

Why does it have to hurt so much like in the real world? This is a dream for God’s sake!

Shew’s second cut was alarming. The thorn bush went crazy and slashed at her face slightly.

Why did she provoke the thorns, and why was that eerie flute playing nearby?

“Shew!” Cerené yelled. “What happened? I can’t see you. Why is that Dark Tune playing? How is this possible?”

Shew was speechless. She could feel the melody possessing her soul. The stories she’d heard about the Wall of Thorns were true. The music from the flute was part of Mozart’s the Magic Flute, the piece Oddly Tune was teaching her right before he turned into a werewolf.

What does this mean? Shut up! There is no time to understand. You should focus on WHY the music is playing. The Wall of Thorns only detects intruders.

“What is going on, Shew?” Cerené cried out beyond the thorns. “I’m coming for you. Wait!”

“No!” Shew managed to say, resisting the urge in her feet to dance in the thorn bush. “Stay where you are, Cerené!”

Shew, in the middle of her panic, wondered if this was why Loki didn’t come to kill her. Maybe the Queen of Sorrow figured out a way for Snow White to kill herself. If so, that would have been some genius plan, to send her back to a memory in her childhood were she should have died naturally.

Nonsense! Shew breathed in deeply as the thorns crawled and spiraled around her with their needle-sharp edges waiting for her to start dancing.

The Queen of Sorrow can’t kill me because I split my heart into seven pieces, and she needs to find them. Maybe Cerené is one of the Lost Seven. Maybe this is what this dream is all about.

She wanted to bend down and scream at her fidgeting legs, which desperately wanted to dance against her will.

The Lost Seven mean nothing at this point, because you’re not sixteen years old yet. She can kill you right now before splitting your heart. You know that if she changes the past in the Dreamworld, the future will change in the Waking World.

Shew raised her hands slowly and clapped her ears so she wouldn’t hear the Dark Tune.

It didn’t work.

A couple of thorns slashed at her hands.

“Why in the name of Sorrow is this music playing?” Shew let out a loud scream.

Then it hit her right in the face.

Of course, the music had to play. Shew wasn’t purely a local. It was true she was born in Sorrow, but in her blood, ancestry, and family tree, she was an evil Sorrow, a real one, a descendant of Night Sorrow, the most vicious vampire in the world. That is why the mermaid told Cerené she feared Shew at the lake that she hadn’t decided whose side she was on. To the Wall of Thorns, Shew was still an enemy.

She wondered how her father ever crossed over to fight the Intruders. He was also a blood descendant of the Sorrows. In many ways, they were both locals of the kingdom but also intruders. The Wall of Thorns decided to treat her as an intruder, and to kill her. At the time of this memory, she wasn’t immortal yet—and how about Carmilla, or was she immune because the wall was her own magic?

Shew couldn’t resist anymore and began dancing to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Although she gave it her best shot, the pain was too strong and she began to faint, her throbbing eyes flickering her way to her last visions of life. She was dying in her own dream, which meant she would stay in a Sleeping Death forever in the Waking World, a coma that no kiss could cure.

Carmilla had won after all.

8

A Never Ending Dream

Fable’s eyes flung open.

It was already daylight, and Axel was still sprawled on the floor next to her. He looked rather funny; his mouth was wide open as if waiting for someone to feed him a sandwich while asleep.

She gazed up at the Schloss’ ceiling, wondering how long she had been unconscious. Her head was heavy, and she couldn’t remember what exactly had taken place.

All she could remember was a vague bang in her head and someone—or something—laughing at her.

She felt weak and hungry, and for the first time she was glad Axel brought his food-stuffed backpack with him. She crawled over, accidentally kicking Axel’s head.

Opening it, she looked for a bag of Tragic Beans or maybe a Reluctant Jelly, but found none. She found a single Poisoned Apple but stopped before grabbing it.

What’s the point of eating an apple that makes you faint while you’re already feeling dizzy?

Axel’s backpack was full as if he was going for picnic. Some of the food was new to her.

The first thing she pulled out was a small box labeled Dr. Rumpelstein’s Awful Pudding. The idea was to eat through the rotten pudding in hopes to win a gold coin. If don’t find it, you’d end in Sorrow’s clinic for pudding-poisoning. If you happened to find the gold coin, you’d probably end up in Sorrow’s Clinic, too, only you have enough money to pay for it this time. Fable decided to pass. She hated anything Rumpelstein anyways, which reminded her suddenly of Lucy.

She threw a look around, but Lucy was nowhere around.

There was a bag in Axel’s bag labeled Talking Mushrooms. Fable threw it away, wondering if it was the reason behind Axel’s non-stop talking.

Then she found a bag of Princess Pees, which she thought sounded fine. The name Princess Peas suited it better, but what the heck, this was Sorrow.

Finally, she found a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs, which came with bugs or bugs-free. The picture on the cover showed a frog with a long red tongue snatching a flying bug.

“Yuck,” she said. “Loki would have hated this.”

Fable’s eyes widened.

Loki! I remember now. His laughing wind knocked us down. I was trying to stop him from killing Shew.

“Wake up, Fable,” she knocked on her head as if it were a coconut. “You’ve got a job to do.”

She remembered running after Loki, trying to stop him from killing Snow White.

“Axel,” she shook her brother. “Wake up!”

“What is it?” Axel moaned. “No school today.”

“Axel! We’re not in Candy House. We’re in the Schloss. Wake up,” Fable unpacked a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs and spilled its contents on him. The frogs were alive, croaking and hopping all around Axel and licking his face. They must have thought he was one big bug.