Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

the expert.

“Yes,” Cerene 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 Cerene. 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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,” Cerene said. “I heard these were the Queen of Sorrow’s orders. She wants to catch Death itself, among other things,” Cerene 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,” Cerene 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.”

“Whatever you say, Cerene,” Shew mumbled.

“Stop,” Cerene waved her hand. “We’ve arrived.”

Shew stopped, looking over Cerene’s shoulder. There was a house made of candy in the distance. It varied in colors from purple, yellow, orange, and red. It glittered with pumpkin lanterns with zigzagged smiley mouths and swayed slightly in the  nighttime breeze.

“You said we had a long walk ahead of us,” Shew licked her lips, tempted to taste the house.

“That’s strange,” Cerene said. “It should have been. I guess the house changed places just as the Schloss does. I told you it’s haunted. I even heard there was a doorway inside that transports you straight to the Schloss.”

“Let’s go,” she dashed in front of Cerene toward the candy.

“Wait! It’s messing with your head,” Cerene ran after Shew, slapping her hands before reaching for the house. “Did you hear me?” she shook Shew harder. “The house is messing with your head. Once you eat from the house, you will faint. I just told you that.”

Shew felt as if waking up from a dream within a dream. She blinked twice to make sure she was herself again. The house surely had and effect on her.

 “What does she need all those children for?” Shew asked.

“Like I said, she eats them, mostly the boys,” Cerene pulled Shew away from the doorstep. She crouched so they wouldn’t be exposed if someone opened the door. “As for the girls, you should be able to guess what she does with the young, ripe and beautiful ones.”

Shew took a moment to think about it. She gasped as the answer hit her.

“Yes,” Cerene nodded. “She sends them to the Queen, your mother, to feed on them so she can stay beautiful forever,” she made a silly face when saying ‘beautiful.’ “That’s horrid,” Shew gazed at the door over Cerene’s shoulder.

“What’s not horrid in your family?” Cerene shrugged her shoulders. “No wonder you’re called the Sorrows.”

“Again, I’m not insulted in any way,” it was Shew’s turn to shrug her shoulders.

“News has been exchanged in Sorrow recently about a number of peasant girls disappearing in the Schloss,” Cerene elaborated. “So the Queen came up with the plan to use Baba Yaga’s hunger for young people to supply her with plenty of them. Once the Queen drinks and bathes in their blood, she sends the bodies back to Baba Yaga to stew them and eat them. Baba Yaga likes the flesh but spits out the bones.”

“Baba Yaga?  What an unusual name,” Shew remarked.

“Of course she has to have an unusual name,” Cerene said. “She eats children!”

The two girls started laughing.

What’s there not to laugh about, Shew thought. This whole dream with Cerene was made of mountains of silly upon mountains of sillier, mixed with a great deal of blood and scary stuff. It was just like life in the Waking World, a set of unfortunate incomprehensible happenings that made no sense. The best way to come back at life is to laugh at it.

“I heard her name resembled the voices she makes when chewing,” Cerene elaborated. “Baba is the sound she makes when she gulps: babababa! And yaga is the sound she makes with her mouth when she tries to chew the bones: yayayaga!”

She also noticed Cerene’s laugh was more infectious and bigger than anyone she had ever met. She laughed as if it was her last day on earth. Her mouth stretched, and her eyes became bigger, her two cute dimples showed from underneath the sticky ashes—and of course, her freckles popped out.

Looking down the hill, Shew noticed a small village in the distance, “do the people in the village down there know about this house?” Shew wondered.

“I don’t think so,” Cerene said. “They are nice people. The village is called Furry Tell. There is a funny story behind the name—“

Suddenly, the door of Candy House sprang open.

13 A Sack Full of Dead Children

A nose appeared from behind the door.

It was a crooked nose, bigger than the biggest carrot they’d ever seen, and slightly dented in the middle. Baba Yaga’s deformed face came after, creeping out under the thin beam from the pumpkin lantern above her. Her face reminded Shew of crumple pies, covered with bumps and sticky juice. Baba Yaga’s face looked like a face someone had nibbled on many times.

“It’s her,” Cerene whispered, shivering and holding Shew’s hand. “The shawl she wears is made of cracked children’s bones.

“Don’t worry,” Shew said.

Shew watched as Baba Yaga began to step out of the house. She walked as fast as a dead turtle. Her body was round, like a cauldron with a head. Her feet protruded from under her feathery cloak. Shew gasped as she noticed Baba Yaga had chicken legs and chicken feet!  She thought they must have been the creepiest feet in the world.

“Why is she taking so long to come out of the house?” Shew whispered, noticing that Baba Yaga, with her crooked nose and chicken legs, looked like a giant evil bird.

“It’s the sack that’s slowing her down,” Cerene whispered back. “The sack on her back is full of sedated girls. She’s on her way to the Queen.”

Shew saw Baba Yaga bend her already-arched back lower and pull a sack twice her size through the door.