Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

“I doubt that is her intention,” Shew said.

“Do we have to talk about this?” Cerene asked. “I came to show you my magic!” She held her glass urn up in front of her.

“I want to see your magic,” Shew assured her, but she was still thinking about why Carmilla spared Cerene. It crossed her mind that even if Cerene decided to expose the Queen, no one would believe her. She had no one to tell, no one respected her, and if her mother had been a burned as a witch, it was easy to accuse Cerene of being like her. It made sense why Tabula had sent her to wash Shew after biting the prince.

In the Kingdom of Sorrow, Cerene was a nobody. She could’ve been killed without anyone missing her.

“Are you still thinking about why the Queen spares me?” Cerene broke the silence.

“So you actually have an idea?” Shew said.

“Yes,” Cerene looked sideways, inspecting for intruders then leaned forward, “the Queen wants my Art!”

“Oh?” Shew raised her eyebrows.

 “You think your Art is that valuable?”

“You have no idea,” Cerene’s face lit up from behind the ashes, titling her neck upwards, and making both her hands into fists. “My Art is astounding!”

“Alright, then it’s time for you to show it to me.” Shew would have preferred if Cerene just told her what the Art was. The things Cerene had shown her were fascinating, though. It was reasonable to think the Art was worth the suspense and the wait. What could Cerene possibly have that the Queen would desire enough to spare her life?

Shew’s thinking confirmed the Queen’s phoniness when she warned her not to mingle with Cerene. 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?” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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!” Cerene exclaimed. “One where children are cooked.”

12 A Trail of Breadcrumbs and Candy

Cerene 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 Cerene 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 Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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 Cerene to speak her mind. The girl was too frank to be honest.

“Don’t shake hands with the trees by the way,” Cerene 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?” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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 Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene explained.

“What’s so luring about breadcrumbs?”

“When you’re poor, breadcrumbs left by a witch on the ground are luring, trust me,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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 Cerene seemed to be