Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) Read online

  Fable nodded reluctantly, realizing that she might have changed the events in the Dreamworld.

  30

  The Queen's Diary

  Angel was gone when I opened my eyes. Like every other time when he was about to succumb to the evil inside him, he'd managed to confront it and keep me safe. How long was he going to have such strength? I felt for him so much that my insides ached. I took a deep breath under the faint moonlight, promising myself I wasn't going to look for him now. God only knew where he had gone, far from the humming mermaids.

  But that wasn't the end of the night for me.

  All around me, the ship had gone insane. Torches had been lit, filling the ship with the ghosts of shimmering yellow light, scattered everywhere. The sailors and the misfits had all embarked the deck. It took me some time to comprehend that I saw.

  Everyone knelt, praying. Some had their hats tucked to their chests. Others laced their fingers tightly, heads upward as if in a church, pleading to the something in the night sky.

  Walking among them, I could still hear the faint humming of the mermaids. But I couldn't see them again when I peeked over the edge. They seemed to change their colors and hide in the dark. Singing underwater, maybe? A continuous, never-ending—non-memorizable—tune that was the reason behind my lover's agony—and mine.

  "Get on your knees." The puffing boy pulled my hand. I knelt next him. There was no point in arguing. None of them would have cared. There was something there up in the sky, and it seemed to have the power to save.

  "What's going on?" I whispered to the boy.

  "Can't you hear them?" He pointed at the sea.

  "Of course I can. I heard them before any of you did."

  "No, you didn't," he hissed. "I glimpsed you behind my curtain walking to the rails. We were just all scared to come out. Pretending we didn't hear them. Then their humming seeped through our souls. We had to do something about it."

  "Something like what?"

  "They'll keep humming until a few of us succumb to their call and throw themselves into the water so they can feed on us." The boy pressed his hands tighter together. He sweated like the other men on the ship. "The mermaids will not stop. Do you hear me?" The puffing boy's gleaming eyes had dimmed. "They won't stop until they have one of us men."

  The word "men" sent a lightning bolt to my eyes. I realized I was the only girl on deck. How was that possible?

  "Men?" I said. "Where are the other women on board?"

  "Taken," the boy said with eyes closed behind clenched hands.

  "Taken by whom?" I grasped the stupidity of my question a few syllables too late. The mermaids had taken the women on ship. They had seduced them the way they had wanted me to come with them. "Every woman?" I neared the boy's ears.

  "All except you, it seems." He opened his questioning eyes, probably wondering why. I didn't have the answer to that.

  "The mermaids asked me to join them too," I explained. "I just. I…" I licked my dry lips. "I don't know how, but I managed not to succumb to their call."

  "The sailors say the mermaids are after the men on the boat, really," the boy elaborated. "They thrive on eating a man's flesh. No other sea creature can fulfill that hunger."

  "Then why take the women, for God's sake?"

  "Women give men their strength," the boy said. "Without them, a man is open to the sea's hunger, and the mermaids' wrath."

  Believe in me, Carmilla! I heard Angel call me. That was why he had always asked me to believe in him. Had I given up on him somehow? Did I have to believe in him more than I did? But wait, that meant that Angel was the only man with hope on this ship, if he hadn't escaped yet. I was the only woman left.

  "We have to pray." The boy reached for my hand.

  "Pray? Not confront the mermaids?" I didn't give him my hand. I had a logical question to ask. I had begun to feel frustrated. Those mermaids and their songs had a dark effect on Angel and the sailors. There had to be something done about it.

  "None of us has the power to face them," the boy said. "Only the moon can confront them." He craned his neck at the full moon above.

  "What will the moon do?" I grimaced. "It's just a white plate, hanging up in the sky." The words escaped me. I remembered when I thought the moon had smiled at me. But not again. That must have been my imagination. The moon was, and had always been, the plate up in the sky. That plate I saw kids throw rocks at near the Pond of Pearls in Styria. The same white plate they talked to, which reflected on the water's surface. Sometimes the girls pretended they were pulling it down to them near dawn, as if holding it with an invisible rope. Then the moon faded away, making way for the sun to shine a new day. The moon was nothing but a plate I had enjoyed looking at before I gave in to sleep every night when I was a child.

  "You're so naive," he said, not looking at me. "The moon is the Creator's eye in the sky. And it's a girl."

  I gritted my teeth, pretending to pray with the others. There was no way I could argue with the boy's nonsense.

  "She lives on the moon," he elaborated. "Or is the moon herself. We don't know. She looks after the goodhearted when they cross the sea at night, and she protects them from all evil, especially the mermaids. The moon and the mermaids have somehow been connected since the beginning of time."

  "Then why isn't she down here protecting us?" I asked. The prayers all around annoyed me. They called for the girl in the moon to protect them. Each of them offered something—a ring, a sword, and sometimes a day's catch of fish. It was absurd.

  "I told you she only protects the goodhearted," the boy insisted, and offered his stash of tobacco in front of him. He pleaded to the girl in the moon and told her it was all he had. He promised to stop smoking if she saved him today.

  "Aren't we goodhearted?" I had to see where this was going.

  "Most of us are, I think. We're all misfits running away from an evil past on this ship," the boy said. "There must be a dark soul on the ship." My mind—although resisting the idea—thought of Angel. He wasn't a dark soul, but was always mistaken for one. Never had I thought it might be me. "I think it's him." The boy shivered and pointed behind me.

  I turned around, thinking I'd see Angel. But it wasn't him. The boy was pointing at Captain Ahab's closed cabin. In spite of the assumptions and the rumors I'd heard, I was curious about why he hadn't come out with all the noise around him.

  "He is a dark man, I'm sure," the boy said. "Why isn't he praying with us? Offer the moon something!" he told the man behind the closed cabin.

  "Yeah, offer her something," the silver-toothed man said. "Maybe your clothes." He grinned at me, and gulped discreetly from his beer.

  "You shouldn't be drinking when we're praying." The boy snatched the ale away from him and set it right next to me. A few sailors peeked back at us. We had to bow down immediately and shut up, although the silver-toothed man wanted his ale back.

  "Give it back," he hissed between gritted teeth at me. I ignored him. I had nothing to do with it. The ale was just next to me, that's all.

  The man's face reddened. He decided to defy all and stand up. "I know why the moon isn't answering us," he shouted at everyone. "Our offerings aren't enough. We're not offering her all we have."

  "Shut up," a sailor said. "Everything we have is laid here upon the deck."

  "Not everything." He pointed his finger at me. I didn't understand what he was implying. "This girl has something she isn't giving away." He wasn't talking about clothes. "I saw her board the ship with a sack. It seemed full of precious things. I think she is a smuggler."

  "We don't see any sack with her," another sailor said.

  "I saw it!" A misfit raised a hand.

  "The barrel man has it." Another misfit stood up. "I saw him hide it in a different barrel each day."

  "Find the barrel!" the head of sailors ordered immediately.

  The mermaids' humming was driving everyone crazy. The crew spread all over the ship looking for my sack in the barrels of wine. I wonder
ed why they hadn't offered the wine to the moon, but years later I learned the moon didn't accept anything that was the color red.

  Stranded, I called for Angel, the wind sucking my words into thin air. There was no point resisting. Angel couldn't show with the mermaids still humming. Why risk him turning into a full vampire by impulsively sucking on the sailors' blood under the mermaids' influence?

  The sailors were frantic, and I was about to see my dreams crashed and burned. I didn't know in which barrel Angel had hidden the sack. I didn't even know what was in the sack. I just knew it was my only precious offering to Lady Shallot in the Tower of Tales.

  Finally, one of them showed up with the sack. I ran to him, trying to get it, but the men held me back.

  "Let's offer it to the moon," a sailor said.

  The misfits disagreed. They wanted to see its contents first. I knew they must have thought it was full of precious items they could sell later, and I had no means with which to stop them. I just wailed and whined like a weakened princess—oh, how I hate how fragile I was in those days.

  Just as one of them pulled it open, a door creaked open somewhere. It creaked loudly and slowly enough for everyone to get back on their knees again. It was Captain Ahab's door.

  31

  What a dark and tall man he was. He smoked his pipe and walked slowly, confidently, not caring about anything in the world, toward us. I couldn't see most of his facial features in the dark, but I had a feeling it was better this way. I could see he had a beard, though. He walked with grace, the wooden floor creaking mercilessly under his steps.

  Captain Ahab walked toward the sack. He didn't pick it up. He pulled a sword and rummaged with it through the items inside, then he continued smoking.

  "She hid it from us. We wanted to offer it to the moon!" the silver-toothed man protested.

  Captain Ahab didn't talk. He simply walked toward the man, still smoking his pipe. I noticed smoke came out of seven holes in it. They were right when they said it wasn't just a pipe, but also a flute. Was he really the descendant of the Piper? Then shouldn't he be connected to the mermaids somehow? Why hadn't they stopped humming, then?

  "We needed more offerings so the Moongirl would help us," the silver-toothed man lied, stuttering, shying away from Ahab's piercing look.

  Captain Ahab simply pulled the man by his neck. With one simple move, he threw him overboard. The man wailed and screamed, kicking hands and legs in the air before he landed in the arms of the mermaids. I could hear them biting happily at him for a while before they faded into silence and disappeared.

  "The Moongirl only saves the goodhearted." Captain's Ahab's voice sucked in the air and I couldn't hear the hiss of the sea or the rippling of its tides. "And most of you aren't."

  "We're not evil-hearted," the man with an eye patch protested.

  "But you're not goodhearted either," Captain Ahab said. "Evil isn't the worst thing in the world. Lost souls like you, who haven't made up their minds, are," he said, as if wanting to spit on each and every one of them. He certainly didn't like humans, men or women. "The only reason why you're on my ship is that I am the only one at sea who can handle lost souls." He took a short drag, almost in rhythm with the tempo of his words. All syllables took an equal amount of time to be pronounced. He didn't feel any rush. Captain Ahab seemed not to care about anything but his whales. "Next time the mermaids show up, just toss one of you to them. It's the best way."

  "I know I chose a side," another man protested. "I know I am goodhearted."

  "Says who?" Captain Ahab laughed and reached for his harpoon.

  Everyone made way for Ahab's target, the poor man who believed he was goodhearted. The captain didn't hesitate. With the pipe in his mouth, he shot at the man, penetrating his middle with his harpoon. "The Moongirl didn't save you from me, did she?" Ahab said, as the man fell silently to his knees then flat to the floor. Blood spread all over the deck. "No, the so-called Moongirl will never near this ship." He meant because she didn't go near the color red. So how was she supposed to save the goodhearted if she didn't get near blood?

  Everyone bowed their heads to Captain Ahab now. The mermaids had gone—and to hell with the moon, they must have thought.

  "The Seven Seas are unforgiving," Captain Ahab preached. "All of you are here to reach a destination. I promise you that most of you won't. Don't make me come out to solve a meager problem like the mermaids again. I have much more important things to do."

  "Please take my soul." The puffing boy crawled closer on hands and knees, wanting to kiss Captain Ahab's boots. "I want to sell my soul to you. Please!"

  Captain Ahab scanned the boy for while, amused by his inquiry. He chuckled lightly and kicked him away. Then he glanced at the sack on the floor and back to me. He walked slowly and stared at me for a while. "Is that sack yours?"

  I nodded, my tongue dry, my body in full sweat.

  "I see you have no splinters in your eyes," he mumbled, but loud enough for only me to hear him. He dragged thoughtfully from his pipe.

  I didn't know about the Andersen Mirror then, and I didn't understand why someone would have splinters in their eyes. What kind of splinters?

  "What are you doing on my ship?" he said.

  I shrugged. "Like anyone else, I have somewhere I want to reach."

  "The Tower of Tales, I presume," He hissed, so only I heard again. Then he smirked, looking at me from top to bottom. I wished I could see more of his face. I could only see his eyes. The color of honey. He nodded to himself, as if he had recognized me. He dragged from his pipe again. It was made from a kind of wood that I had never seen before. Close up, it looked like a carved bone more than a pipe. I wondered if he turned people he killed into pipes.

  "How did you know?" I managed to ask.

  Captain Ahab said nothing. With the pipe between his lips, he nodded at the sack. I didn't want him to know that I didn't know what was inside the sack. But I was curious to know the connection now.

  "It's my offering to Lady Shallot," I whispered, not wanting the sailors and misfits to hear me.

  "Of course it is," he said. "You have in the sack what Lady Shallot most desires. What many others desire." He bent over slightly, smoke from his pipe swirling around me like a halo. "And what the sailors and misfits on the boat desire the most."

  "I don't understand." I was talking about the last part in his sentence. Of course this was what Lady Shallot desired, but why did the sailors desire it?

  "Believe it or not, young girl," he said into my ear, "you could have summoned the Moongirl."

  I wasn't comfortable with his voice in my ears. It had been a scary voice from far away, let alone so close. My eyes fell closed for a moment, tolerating his proximity, and I asked, "So she exists?"

  Captain Ahab pulled away, tucked the pipe in his mouth again, and laughed at the moon above. "Did you listen to her?" He was talking to the moon now. I was perplexed, too confused to comprehend or think about anything.

  "The moon looks like a white plate, doesn't it?" He winked at me, and turned around to walk back to his cabin.

  "Wait." I couldn't let him leave yet. "Are Lady Shallot and the Tower of Tales real?" I didn't care if the sailors heard me now. My intuition told me I wouldn't last long on this ship. I needed a clue as to where to go later.

  "That's what they say," he said. "I've been years in the sea, though, and haven't seen a Tower of Tales—or no tales. I could use one myself to start a new life if I had seen it." He chuckled at his own misery.

  "I see," I said. "Will you let me keep the sack?" It was all I cared about, and it didn't make sense for a moment. I was doing my best to keep a sack whose contents I didn't know, trying to offer it to a woman I didn't know in a tower that might be a myth. All of this in a quest to find a new life with the one I loved.

  "I have no use of the sack," Captain Ahab said. "Nor do I have use of you on my ship."

  "I understand." I bowed my head. He was going to exile me. I didn't need to know why.
Whatever was going on seemed beyond my comprehension. But where would I go? Would he guide me, give me a boat? He didn't look like that kind of man. He didn't care. "What will happen of me now?"

  "Are you alone on my ship?"

  "I have someone with me," I said. "The man who lifts the barrels. He is asleep."

  "Asleep?" I could tell he didn't believe me. "No man sleeps when the mermaids call, young lady." He stopped to consider. "I will overlook this, though. It's the least I can do for the woman who brought apples back to Europe."

  My eyes widened. I raised my head. A few sailors behind me murmured, confused by Captain Ahab's prolonged conversation with me.

  "However, I can't handle you on my boat," he said. "You're heavy, young lady."

  "Heavy?"

  "Your soul is too heavy for my ship," he said. I didn't ask what he meant. It was like everyone was telling me how special—and how much of a burden—I was lately. "I have no interest in your war. I am after a whale."

  The hisses behind me increased.

  "May I ask why?"

  Captain Ahab smirked. It was a painful smirk, coming from a man in pain, disguised as an ungodly sailor in the sea. He confused me, as I couldn't understand whether he was good or evil. But what was purely good and evil? Everyone I came upon, including Angel, had both sides in them. They all coped with their lives and tried to make the best of it. I began to learn that evil was temporary, that what was evil to me could not be so to someone else, that what was evil now might not be evil tomorrow. Evil was just a point of a view, and each of us needed a spot to look from each day.

  "There is a whale out there who has something I want," Captain Ahab said. "I presume it might be something you want too, but I see you're still young and inexperienced. The sea, however, will teach you—"

  "Please, allow us to sell our souls to you," a few men behind me begged him again. "Help us survive the atrocities of the Seven Seas. Our souls for you!"

  Captain Ahab shushed them and turned back to me. I wasn't going to sell my soul to him. If he was the man the devil talked about, I didn't care. My soul was mine. My fate was mine to decide. My heart was mine to keep. I may have been weak, but I was a Karnstein. No Karnstein sold a piece of themselves to anyone, whatever the price.