Shew’s thinking confirmed the Queen’s phoniness when she warned her not to mingle with Cerené. In fact, the Queen must have told her the Italian fairy tale for a reason, something to stir Shew’s thinking.

“Remember when I told you my Art is made of a Heart, a Brain, and a Soul?” Cerené said. “There are two Brains, the tools for my Art, one of them can only be obtained from a house in the Black Forest.”

“House?”

“An evil house,” Cerené leaned in, whispering.

“Huh? Evil house,” Shew said. “If it’s such an evil house, why would it help your Art?”

“There is something special in the house, something we need.”

We? Shew thought. Although I am barely contributing to anything, I like the idea of ‘we’.

“What kind of something special?” Shew wondered.

“A furnace!” Cerené exclaimed. “One where children are cooked.”

12

A Trail of Breadcrumbs and Candy

Cerené called it the Candy House, an abandoned house on the top of a hill beyond the forest.  She described it as the second most haunted house in the Kingdom of Sorrow.

“If this is the second, what is the first?” Shew asked, following the tiny ashen girl into the dark of the forest. The way Cerené guided her through the secrets of Sorrow, reminded Shew of an imaginary childhood she should have experienced. Had she not been a prisoner of the Schloss by her father King and mother Queen, she should have experienced the kind of adventures Cerené did. The girl might have been poor but the world was her playground. Nothing could’ve been more fun than a childhood of exploring the doghouse in the garden and pretending it was a rabbit hole to another dimension. Of course, in Sorrow she didn’t need to pretend anything. Surreal and imaginary was normal.

“The most haunted house in Sorrow is the Schloss itself,” Cerené said, ducking to avoid a bending tree branch—trees acted mostly like humans in Sorrow, using their branches like arms, tickling you, playing with you, and sometimes doing things that were more sinister.

“The Schloss is not haunted,” Shew squinted her way through.

“Oh, yes, it is,” Cerené said. “Did you know your cellar was a dungeon used for torturing enemies and that the Schloss had been seen in others places around the world before your father even built it in Sorrow? It’s a Genus Loci.”

“What’s a Genus Loci?”

“All the things I just mentioned about the Schloss before. Basically, it’s a place with a soul of its own. Pay attention, Joy.”

“Oh,” Shew said. “I get it,” Trust me, you don’t have to tell me about the Schloss.

“The fact that you and the Queen live in the house makes it haunted already,” Cerené chuckled nonchalantly.

“I’m not offended by what you just said, thank you very much,” Shew let out half-a-laugh. Shew began regretting she had told Cerené to speak her mind. The girl was too frank to be honest.

“Don’t shake hands with the trees by the way,” Cerené said without looking back. “It’s a trap.”

“Shake hands?” Shew saw two tree branches taking the shape of human wooden hands and shaking each other as if they were friendly. One of them turned to Shew and offered her a hand. Shew snarled at the tree branches. She scared them so much that they ran away on eight branches, like spiders on eight legs.

“What have you done?” Cerené peeked back from between the bushes. Her ashen face was barely visible. Only her blue eyes and white teeth showed—the toothpaste had been working its magic.

“I snarled at them,” Shew said impatiently. “I’m fed up with all the scare. I think it’s time I use my powers.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Cerené objected. “They already fear you. Many things in the forest fear you. They know who you are, and it scares them.”

“I don’t remember the Rapunzel plants or the Wall of Thorns being scared of me,” Shew said.

“The Rapunzel plants are said to be watered by the devil. That’s a different story. The Wall of Thorns hurt you because it is scared of intruders. By reacting the way it did meant it’s actually scared of you, too, the way bees sting a person if they fear them,” Cerené whispered. “Now that you scared the trees, we have nothing to hide in. That was the whole point of walking in their shade.”

“If everything here is scared of me, why aren’t you scared of me?” Shew drew back her fangs.

 You’re my friend, Joy,” Cerené said. “And sometimes you’re weird but I forgive you.”

“I’m weird?” Shew felt insulted. She had been dealing with all kinds of weird Cerené had gotten her into since they met.

“Do I have to remind you again that you bit a cute prince and killed Oddly Tune, Joy? That’s weird,” Cerené rolled her eyes and turned around, arching her back like a sneaky cat on her way to catch a rat. “Come on, we have a long walk ahead of us.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?”

“We’re following the breadcrumbs on the ground,” Cerené said. “Look at your feet.”

Shew saw a trail of breadcrumbs, indeed. They were scattered randomly on the ground, creating a snaky trail in the distance.

“Is that like a secret sign that shows the way to the Candy House?” Shew said.

“An evil witch lives in Candy House, she likes to eat children, and she lures them to her house with the trail of breadcrumbs,” Cerené explained.

“What’s so luring about breadcrumbs?”

“When you’re poor, breadcrumbs left by a witch on the ground are luring, trust me,” Cerené said. “Besides, there is candy scattered on the ground, too.”

“Who leaves shiny candy like that on the ground? Is this candy poisonous?” Shew asked.

“No, it makes you faint,” Cerené said, climbing a small hill. “It’s devilishly enchanted candy. This candy and each brick, window frame, door, and even the roof of Candy House is made of delicious colorful candy.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me about the forest?” Shew asked, now that Cerené seemed to be the expert.

“Yes,” Cerené said. “Watch out for the Forbidden Color. You know what that is, right?”

“I know red is a forbidden color in Sorrow,” Shew said. It had been one of the mysteries she hadn’t figured out—or maybe she just couldn’t remember it like she couldn’t remember Cerené. No one was allowed to wear red in Sorrow. Even the red fruits like apples and vegetables like tomatoes were golden. Rumor had it that they were the color red outside of Sorrow. “You want to enlighten me with something else about that fact?” she wondered.

“Of course, I want to enlighten you,” Cerené said, sniffing the air around her as if Candy House had a certain smell she would identify. “Red is forbidden because it’s the color of Death.”

“Death has a color?”

“Death wears a red cloak and holds a scythe, walking around the Black Forest,” Cerené stopped and turned around, making sure Shew wasn’t going to take this lightly.

“I don’t suppose Death is also a girl?” Shew mocked her.

“You’re damn right, she is,” Cerené glared. “A woman actually. She wakes up everyday with a list of people she has to collect their souls and roams Sorrow, looking for them. Once she finds them, she chops off their heads,” Cerené swung her broom in the air. “Pomona, the Goddess of Fruits and Vegetables prohibited all plants from being red, even apples and tomatoes.”

“That’s why apples and tomatoes are red in Sorrow?” Shew was skeptical, but it was the only explanation she’d ever heard so far. “Why did Pomona do that?”

“Because if red is nowhere to be seen in Sorrow, then it’d be easier to catch Death,” Cerené said. “I heard these were the Queen of Sorrow’s orders. She wants to catch Death itself, among other things,” Cerené rolled her eyes, and walked farther.

“But how were the Sleepers dressed in red in the Field of Dreams? Is there significance to that?”

“The Sleepers are dead girls, killed by your mother,” Cerené explained, not looking back. “They wear red because if order for them to die, they must have been visited by Death. The red rather marks the spot, which in our case are the Sleepers, until they wake up a hundred years later. And if you’re going to ask me how I escaped beyond the Wall of Thorns wearing the red dress, I took it off once I entered the Black Forest. Now stop asking question. You talk too much.”