Once Beauty Twice Beast, Moon & Madly, Rumpelstein, Jawigi Read online

  I showed myself to him and threatened to kill him, pretending that the flower meant a lot to me and that he had to give me something really precious in return. I pushed him to offer me one of his three daughters who lived in a small house and experienced the real happily ever afters, living in the Kingdom of Sorrow.

  The man agreed, and went back to send me his daughter…

  As I write this diary right now, the doorbell of the castle just rang. I am glad I completed my tale before my visitor came, or you might have never known about it. My visitor is a special guest, and my visitor means both life and death to me.

  I am going to stand up now and leave this diary be. I will go open the castle’s gate for my visitor, the daughter of the man I cursed under the influence of the beast inside me. I will try my best to make her love me. I will try to be patient, chivalrous, and understanding if she doesn’t love me right away. I will be understanding if she thinks she is only here to save her father from getting killed, choosing to sacrifice herself while her two sisters gave up on him. And after that, I will let her go home, so it will be her choice to return with her love for me or escape my cursed bestiality forever.

  If she does return, then I’ll break free from the curse, and we will live happily ever after. If she doesn’t, I will understand that she owes me nothing. I did hurt her before while all she wanted from me was to love her.

  I take one last look at the Persian canvas on the wall and read the words aloud, ‘Things must be loved before they are lovely.’

  I will go now and open the door for Villeneuve who doesn’t remember that she was once the Beast.

  As I leave you, it occurs to me that I know now why the pages of the book titled the Beauty and the Beast were empty. It’s because they weren’t written yet. It’s my job to fill its pages while Villeneuve is with me in the castle. It’s my duty to make the story right.

  I hope that one day when the pages in the book are written, and you read it, you’ll find that I succeeded in making her love me. Only then, it won’t matter who is beauty and who is beast, because we all had our share of both sides one way or another.

  End of Grimm Diary Prequel #7

  Author’s Notes:

  1) As much as I like this prequel, I know it’s the vaguest of them all. You don’t get to even know who the narrator is. But you get to know the Castle. I am a big fan of how powerful places are, and how they might choose us while we think that it was us who chose it. But what’s most important in this prequel is the theme of beauties and beasts, which is a major theme in Snow White Sorrow. What makes us monsters, what makes us human, and what does it mean?

  2) It always puzzled me who the Beast really was in the original Brothers Grimm version. I never bought this part that he was just an enchanted prince. It didn’t make his motives strong enough for me. But when we know that she, the beauty, was once the beast, and that she doesn’t remember, I guess the real story gets much more interesting.

  3) The original texts that inspired this are The Beauty and the Beast, East of the Sun West of the Moon, the Phantom of the Opera, and Cupid and Psyche, although the last two aren’t by the brothers Grimm or fairy tales.

  The Grimm Diaries Prequels # 8

  Moon & Madly

  by Cameron Jace

  Edited by Danielle Littig & Gema Guevara

  Moon & Madly

  as told by the Moongirl

  Dear Diary,

  I was the moon. I was your light in your darkest night. I showed you the way, and I kept you company if you were riding on your own. I was the moon. My presence, when full, shot a Cupid’s arrow to your heart, enticing you into falling in love. I was bright in the middle of the night. I was round and tender against your sharp fear of the dark. I was far away, but always watching over you as you slept. You observed me, wrote about me, painted me, and chanted incantations to summon me. You knew me well, and you wished you owned a magical bicycle which you could steer high in the sky, reaching for me. I was here since long ago, for millions and millions of years. The one thing you don’t know about me is that I am a girl.

  In the Kingdom of Sorrow, children were told stories about me. I heard mothers tell their children that the moon was a balloon floating on the night sky above them. If the children tiptoed and squinted, they could see its eyes, nose, and a crescent smile. Other children were told that a beautiful girl was controlling the moon with a rope, like a kite in the sky, and that she only pointed it near the good-hearted children to keep them safe from the dark, especially the children who went to bed early and obeyed their parents.

  Parents told their children stories they thought were only lies. Although lying wasn’t a virtue—something all parents taught their kids—no one had a problem with this sort of lie.

  They were considered beautiful lies, and beautiful was always forgiven, even when it came with a little ugliness on the side.

  But the children knew better. They knew that some of these stories were real. They knew that I was real, and that there was no girl controlling the moon, because the moon was always the beautiful girl in the sky whom the creatures of the night feared. The Boogeymen feared me, remaining hidden in their closets, unable to get out when I shone my light through the children’s windows. Even when evil goblins, who only dwelled in the dark, managed to sneak past my light blocked by tree canopies in hopes of hurting children, I was left with no choice but to descend down to earth and kick their scary butts away.

  Children loved me, waved at me and blew me kisses from behind foggy windows, wishing I’d always be there until they grew up and could defend themselves against the night. They saw me in my human form; a blonde girl hiding under a black cloak that only showed my eyes, trying my best to keep my bright light hidden under the cloak, although my bare feet always created haloes of light on the ground.

  The children and I had a secret, and it remained this way because parents were awful, unable to understand these things.

  As for me, I was created long ago by the creators of all creators, the makers of all makers, and the gods of all gods, whose name I am forbidden to reveal for reasons beyond your understanding. I had been here since some time after the earth sprang into existence, and before the first human heart ever ticked in the clockwork of life.

  I wasn’t old, though. I was forever young. I was about sixteen in human years. I was immortal. Not just in the sense that I was to live until the end of the world, but I knew, deep down, that I was going to live beyond that.

  In the beginning, when the world was still ripe and man had no magical powers against monsters, I was there to protect the good-hearted when they walked the dark of night. I lit their way so they arrived safely to their destinations. I smiled down on the righteous when they slept and dreamt of better days.

  Later, I was ordered that I should also protect the bad men, and those who lived in shades of grey, leaning toward the dark side. I was taught that no one was perpetually evil, and it was my responsibility to point them in the right direction, as long as they weren’t hurting good people.

  I was the moon, and I was proud of myself, keeping the monsters away. I was people’s savior from the dark, against the creatures of the night: Trolls, witches, warlocks, bogs, spirits, vampires, faeries, gargoyles, giants, golems, and wolves who gained dark powers from my full moon.

  I only awoke at night. By day, I sunk into the Ocean of Dreams and slept at its bottom, deep enough to bury my light. The Ocean of Dreams, a place unbeknownst to man, allowed me to breathe underwater when the sun was up. I wasn’t able to breathe underwater anywhere else.

  Even though I was immortal, only one thing could kill me: if I descend down to earth and didn’t return to the sky before sunrise, and that was what almost happened to me one night…

  I want to tell you about the night the moon died. It all started with the goblins that arrived to the Kingdom of Sorrow, wearing darkness as a cloak over their ugly bodies.

  There was a time when apples were still gold and lit the
dark forest for the good men the way I did. The apples were created by Pomona, the goddess of fruits and vegetables, and she had her own reasons for turning apples gold, but she made them glow to help me.

  You see, the Black Forest, where Pomona lived, was the hardest place for me to light up at night. The darkness that stemmed from the Black Forest was too strong, and the trees were cursed. An ancient dark force had given them power to growing exceptionally high, and to curve on their own to prevent my light from splaying through – I heard the trees were only giants in disguise keeping their eyes out for a boy who stole from them repeatedly, but it might have been only a myth.

  Like many other places in the Kingdom of Sorrow, I needed to work harder to spread my light into the forest to protect people from things that go bump in the dark.

  One day, when most of my endeavors proved unsuccessful, I changed into my human form and descended down to the kingdom, donning my black cloak. I pulled my cloak tighter so my bright light didn’t shine from underneath. As for my eyes, I couldn’t do anything about that. They shone like two full moons in the darkest night. Pun intended.

  I tucked back my golden hair underneath the cloak but it kept dangling out over my face. I told myself that I wasn’t going to stay on earth for long.

  Down in the Black Forest, I saw a squirrel digging for something near a tree. It seemed that it had buried something and forgotten where, but then I noticed it was too dark for it to see. I pulled up my cloak to my neck, and the light from my feet glowed around the squirrel. It finally found what it was digging for: its partner who’d been playing games and hiding in the dark. I loosened my clutch on the cloak and let it fall to my feet, smiling at the embracing squirrels.

  Then I saw an old man who had taken his shoe off near a lake, wanting to fill it up with water and drink from it. Discreetly, I shone some of my light for him so he wouldn’t fall into the lake. He ended up raising his head and thanking the stars in the sky, instead of me. The starlight had always been soft and not as strong as mine, but I wasn’t here to be thanked. I was doing my job.

  My little journey was a failure. I couldn’t find a way to separate the trees or cast a spell upon them, and the red eyes staring at me from the dark worried me. Walking on earth was risky. What if I was caught by creatures of the night? I would die, and then who would light up dark nights?

  I looked up at the void I left in the darkened skies above, and reminded myself that I couldn’t be in two places at once.

  Don’t stay for too long. You should be going back up there soon. Too many people in the Kingdom need you.

  Suddenly, I heard rattling sounds and yelling nearby. Ready to protect another passer-by, I scanned the dark with my eyes and parted my cloak a little to see ahead. There was a boy running away from someone chasing after him in the dark. He didn’t look so much afraid as amused. I saw him eating a fruit while he ran, occasionally looking over his shoulder and smiling at his chasers. He also seemed concerned with the green hat he wore on his head; as if it really mattered that it stayed on without being damaged in any way. Running, he took another bite from the fruit yelling, “De.li.cious!”

  I lit up the way for him, distracting him, and he ended up heading my way.

  “What are you doing?” He screamed at me. “What’s all that light? Run, girl, run!”

  I raised my eyebrows. I thought he needed the light to escape from his unseen chasers – I could hear their voices, though. They were goblins.

  “Poor girl,” the boy held out his hand for me to grab. “Come with me. I’ll protect you.”

  “Protect me?” I laughed from under my cloak. I was the one supposed to protect him.

  “Come on,” he pulled my hand. “These are the goblins, meaning they’re not good for you. No one fights them. You just run,” He took another bite from the wonderful, juicy fruit in his hand. He also made disgusting sounds when he chewed, as though he had no manners. “Lovely,” he closed his eyes momentarily, indulging in the taste of the fruit. It looked so tempting, I wanted to snatch it away from him and eat it myself, but I was the moon, I wasn’t supposed to do things like that.

  “Why are they following you?” I found the boy interesting in a quirky way so I ran along with him.

  “This!” he held the fruit in his hand, now just a core. “The Goblin Fruit. It’s their most precious fruit. I stole it. Hell, yeah,” he panted, tapping his hat again before it flew off of his head, and throwing the fruit core at the goblins chasing us.

  “And you dare risk your life for a fruit?” I rebuked him, sounding ridiculously like someone’s mother.

  “My life? What life?” he said, his eyes scanning for a place to hide.

  Before I could ask him any more questions, I stumbled over a fallen tree and fell face forward. I shouldn’t have socialized with him while working, but I felt lonely and I was always excited to get to know new people. As soon as my face hit the ground, I tightened my grip on the cloak, and tucked my hair in. I thought the boy would keep running, and leave me here for the goblins. Ironically, the protector suddenly became the prey.

  But he didn’t. He came back for me.

  “If I had a golden egg for every time I do this, I’d be a rich chicken,” he sighed, standing over me with his hands at his waist.

  “Do what?” I furrowed my brows, even though I was happy he didn’t abandon me.

  “Save a girl’s ass,” he sighed, pulling me up.

  I found myself pushing him away, afraid he’d see my face or the ridiculous amount of light I hid underneath. I didn’t want to scare him away, and I was prohibited by my makers to reveal myself to anyone but the children. It was a sin to show myself, let alone admire a mortal boy.

  “Although I can’t confirm you have an ass with this carcass of a cloak you’re hiding in,” he mumbled, entranced by my eyes. “Wow. Why are you eyes so strange?” he blinked.

  The goblins were closing in on us, and he was forced to tear his gaze away from me, which I had really liked.

  “Get in here,” he pulled me to a nearby tree, knocked on it once, and a door shimmered into existence. He simply pushed me inside. How did he manage to do that? I didn’t know, but it seemed so ridiculously effortless. “You stay here until I get rid of them,” he told me, then went on to move his hand in front of me as, if I were a mere reflection, “Is my hat looking good?” he asked playfully, and then closed the tree door on me.

  Thankfully, there were holes in the door. I made sure I watched what the boy was going to do with the goblins. It amazed me that he decided to confront them in the middle of the forest.

  “Stop!” the boy said to the approaching goblins, heaving a sack on his back. His command was so sudden that the goblins actually stopped, glaring at him with suspicious red eyes. The last goblin in the line bumped into another, splashing mud at a third. The boy held back his laugh so they wouldn’t get madder. The goblins were short; they looked like they were stuffed with clay, and looking at them was torture. They circled the boy, keeping their distance, wondering why he stopped and what he was up to.

  The boy stood in the middle, legs parted, one hand still holding the sack, and the other hanging limply at his side. He returned their suspicious look, not trusting them as well. It was as if each of them thought of the other as a tiger who needed to be tamed. The only difference was that the goblins had the boy outnumbered

  “Give back the goblin fruit, Jack Madly,” the goblin leader growled at the boy.

  “I warned you to never call me Madly,” Jack said. “I’m Jack of the Beanstalk. I’m awesome, and some will write a book about me.”

  “We like to call you Madly,” another goblin teased. “Isn’t that what they called your grandmother, because she was mad? If you hadn’t been an orphan and had a mother and a father, maybe we’d have called you by their names.”

  “I bet they were low-life like you, Jack Madly,” a third goblin laughed. Actually, I wasn’t sure it was a laugh since it sounded sinister.

 
“As if any of you gobs knows your own mother?” Jack fired back, but calmly. “You guys are so ugly I don’t know how you even mate. Are there even baby goblins? How short are they?”

  The Goblins growled in unison, ready to pounce. The goblin leader signaled them to stop, and prompted Jack to go on.

  “Easy…” Jack said amusingly, noticing their impatience. “I’m just going to drop my Sack of Wonders on the ground,” he said, letting it slide slowly off his shoulder. “Now, there is no need to panic, as soon as the sack thuds against the ground it will go boom. It’s just physics. It’s called the consequences of gravity. Things make that sound when they fall, alright?” Jack not only viewed them as monsters, but also as angry fools who would burst out their evil for no such reason.

  Still, the goblins growled at him, eyes on the sack. Their most dangerous attribute wasn’t their vicious killings. It was their stupidity. I couldn’t help but think of them as nasty dwarfs with fangs. They were such peculiar creatures.

  “He is tricking us into something,” one of the goblins said, but his leader shushed him again. There was no hurry. They were many and Jack wasn’t going anywhere. They were capable of catching him and eating him alive at any moment. I wondered how Jack was going to get out of this ambush. The goblins weren’t forgiving when their fruit was stolen. I’ve heard rumors about the Goblin Market, but never explored it. It was said that goblins used the fruit to lure young innocent girls into their trap and eat them. They liked feasting on young maidens.