“I guess next time I will buy myself something to eat. Great idea,” Cerene patted Shew on the back. “But for now, I’m going to use it to get that plant and practice my magic.”
“Alright,” Shew sighed. “How is this coin going to help?”
“It’s the plant’s weakness,” Cerene explained. “Myth has it that this plant was seeded by an evil sorcerer who craved gold more than anything in the world. The Rapunzel plant is poisonous, and is also cursed with an insane hunger for gold; the same hunger its creator had.
Only one girl, ironically named Rapunzel after the plant, has power over it.”
“Where could we find this girl?”
“I have no idea,” Cerene said. “She isn’t the solution to getting the Rapunzel plant though. This coin in my hand is how I’ll get it.”
“Tell me about it,” Shew demanded.
“Once the plant sees a golden coin in my hand, it will want it so bad that it will rip its roots apart trying to get it,” Cerene explained.
“Did you say rip its roots out?” Shew said. “Which means it will kill itself?”
“I told you it’s a crazy plant,” Cerene said. “You want to know what’s really crazy about it? If you plant it back to the earth after its dead, it grows back alive in an instance. Now let me do what I have to do,” Cerene stood up and ran toward the plant impulsively. She stretched her arm and showed the gold coin the someone would tempt a horse with a cube of sugar.
The Rapunzel plants went crazy, arching their bodies and stretching out their petal arms, wailing like creepy ghosts. The plant closest to Cerene was losing its mind.
“Give me that coin, you filthy ashen slave!” the plant wailed, almost ripping itself apart.
“Say please,” Cerene teased it, avoiding another one sneaking up behind her, trying to eat her toe, but failed. Thanks to Cerene’s unusual slippers.
“I won’t say please to you, daughter of Bianca!” the plant screamed.
“You nasty witch!” another plant screamed in high-pitched tones. “You always come here and take one of us! You make us kill ourselves.”
“I will rip your ashen heart apart,” a third plant said, stretching high enough to bite on Cerene’s knees. A couple of other plants bit parts of her dress off.
Cerene backed off; too far for the plant to reach her, “You’re horrible plants,” she talked to them. “You eat every living thing that passes next to you. What has that poor frog done to you?”
“If you think we’re horrible, you’re just as horrible,” the plant said as Shew tried to pull Cerene away from them. Talking plants weren’t that surprising in the Kingdom of Sorrow. Weird was just about the norm.
Cerene pulled away from Shew’s grip and dared brush the coin against the plant’s arm then pulled it away immediately. The plant swallowed the trick and stretched out far enough to rip its roots from the soil.
Cerene picked up the dying plant—and several others. They were flopping like fish out of water before giving up.
Cerene she ran away, the other plants cursing her.
“Run away, daughter of Bianca!” the plants snarled.
“Burn! Burn! Burn!” the plants started spitting the food they’d eaten at Cerene and Shew; frog’s legs, chicken wings, and squirrel teeth.
Shew and Cerene ran back to the hill. Cerene acted as if she were just playing, waving her Rapunzel plant in the air with a wide victorious smile on her face, not paying attention to the cuts the plants made on her fingers.
“You’re hurt,” Shew said. “I think we should get back to the castle. I can mend your wounds,” she regretted not snarling with her fangs at the plants.
“I’ve been cut worse,” Cerene said nonchalantly.
“Did the plants cause the same cut on your cheek and neck?” Shew inquired, unable to hold her curiosity. Suddenly, it occurred to her that Cerene hid her scars intentionally behind the ashes. That was why she wouldn’t clean the ashes off her skin, because they’d show the wounds she’d preferred hiding.
Cerene’s eyes dimmed, betrayed by Shew’s question. She stared at her with moist eyes. All the happiness she’d just experience in getting the plants just withered away.
Shew knew the girl was about to burst into tears, but she couldn’t help but ask her.
“You’re horrible,” Cerene screamed at Shew. “You promised not to ask,” she threw the Rapunzel plant in Shew’s face and ran down the other side of the hill, deeper into the forest.
Shew picked up the plant and ran after her. It was a long shot. With each step, Shew felt guilty that she had upset her.
Almost a mile later, Shew knocked Cerene down and held her tightly until she stopped crying.
Finally, when Shew apologized repeatedly, Cerene stopped crying, and slept in her arms the way tired babies do.
Shew brushed her hair gently, leaned back against a tree, wondering about this mysterious girl. She thought she’d never felt so curious and caring about someone like her.
With nothing else to do, waiting for Cerene to wake up again, Shew’s thoughts drifted, thinking about Loki again.
Remembering Loki, she touched the necklace he’d given her in the World Between Dreams—she’d been wearing it since the beginning of this dream. Shew looked at the cryptic engravings on the necklace again:
She tried to read it vertically from both sides then she flipped it upside down. Either it was some kind of a symbol or parts of an alphabet. She still didn’t know.
Frustrated, she sighed, looking at the moon above. For a moment, Shew thought she saw the moon smile at her.
6
The Mermaid’s Milk
A little later, Cerene woke up screaming.
Shew held her tighter; assuring her she was in safe hands. Still, it wasn’t the hands that finally calmed Cerene but Shew’s caring eyes looking back at her.
“Friends?” Cerene said.
Shew was surprised these were her first words, “Of course,” she replied.
Whatever unexpected drama was happening, Cerene had found a trusting pair of eyes as a friend for the first time in about fourteen years, and Shew, who’d always thought of herself as a lonely monster, learned that a person who’d been smeared with the ugliness of the world, could still have a beautiful effect on others.
“Nightmares?” Shew patted her.
“Always nightmares, awake and asleep,” Cerene said.
Shew wanted to ask her about Bianca, whom she’d assumed was Cerene’s mother. She also wanted to ask her what the Rapunzel plants meant by ‘Burn! Burn! Burn!’
“Nightmares don’t matter now. You have this,” Shew pointed at the Rapunzel plant, which Cerene had been gripping tightly while asleep.
“Yeah,” Cerene jumped to her feet. “I forgot. Let’s play! Come on,” she pulled Shew and stared at the moon.
It was a full moon, but it wasn’t smiling at them the way Shew had imagined.
“You know that’s a girl up there?” Cerene said dreamingly.
“A girl?” Shew blinked. “Oh, you mean the old tale about the girl living on the moon?”
