The Grimm Prequels Book 5: (Prequels 19-24) Read online

The ritual was that I needed to drink Count Dracula’s blood to wake up. None other than his would have resurrected me. I’ll spare you the rest of the ritual’s bloody details.

  All you need to know is that Peter needed to wake me up. And it worked. I drank Dracula’s blood and opened the door to my loving Peter waiting for me.

  He let me drink his blood, too, to strengthen my long buried Swan Soul. Peter had always had a weakness for me. And so I returned to the Real World, having been buried in the Dream World for years — a long story I’ll get into in another diary.

  The point of reminding you of this story?

  A few days after my resurrection, I realized the day of the ritual was a Friday. The thirteenth of that month.

  “Why Friday the thirteenth, Peter?” I asked.

  “It’s how the ritual works. It had to be that day. No other day would have brought you back, darling.”

  I loved it when the boy who never grew up called me darling. Much better than Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Swan.

  But I was still confused. What did I have to do with Friday the thirteenth? And why did people fear that day?

  Only the Piper knew, but he was nowhere to be found, even though he told me that one day I would know the reason why.

  So I dug and searched, looking for answers. Peter had an incredibly large library in his castle. A library that was said to have existed in the same castle where Beauty and the Beast first met.

  A boring library, if you ask me.

  Its shelves appeared and disappeared, based on whether they wanted to show themselves to you. Its corridors had been too long, getting darker the farther you walked. So much dark that I heard some people were consumed by it and never came back.

  The books in library had also been strange. Aside of being books of sands, only read once every hundred years, most books were nothing but empty pages because they’d not been written yet.

  Neither I nor Peter had been fond of such mysteries. So we spent the rest of day spreading the chaos I liked so much. We kidnapped people, sometimes I drank their blood, or whatever made me love my life even more.

  Until one day when I came across a book that told of the day the Piper had visited the town of Hamlin, the twenty-sixth of June 1284. The story of how the Founders refused to pay him and how he kidnapped their children and sent them to Transylvania and turned them into the first vampires in the world.

  And of course, the story of how seven of the children escaped him. How he spent the rest of his life chasing them and their descendants all over the world. The children whom everyone called the Lost Seven.

  None of that really mattered at the moment.

  All but one thing. It turned out the day the Piper sent the children to Transylvania, a few weeks after the incident at Hamlin, had been… you guessed it. A Friday. The thirteenth. The first day the first vampire was born, made out of magical spell that involved a mixture of blood, milk, and chocolate.

  “You think this is a coincidence?” I asked Peter, who was playing with his knife, hardly paying attention.

  “Friday the thirteenth? I don’t think so. I heard many important events in our history occurred that day.”

  “I can accept that,” I said. “A date that is significant and important. But why do people fear it?”

  “It’s a dark day that brings dark memories,” was Peter’s simple answer. “The day you killed the rest of the swans. The day the Piper began his legacy of vampires. Awfully creepy things, I must say.”

  But I wasn’t convinced. “Doesn’t explain why people fear it so much.”

  “I once heard that deep down in people’s collective memory, they know why they fear it. They just can’t remember it.”

  “What is collective memory?”

  “Some call it Ancestor’s Memory. The memories your ancestors pass on to you without you ever knowing it. You’d wake up realizing you’re scared of something but never knowing why. Like how each of us discovers they have an inner instinct for hunting if they ever tried it. An instinct passed on to us by our first grandfathers who had to hunt to eat.”

  “Are you saying fear is the same?”

  “Of course. We may fear things and don’t know why because they have been passed to us by our ancestors.”

  And that was where the conversation stopped. Nothing was solved. I still didn’t know why people feared Friday the thirteenth.

  Days went by, and later I learned the day the Kingdom of Sorrow was threaded into life by a woman called Lady Shallot was also a Friday, the thirteenth.

  This and many other memories in Sorrow.

  What was the secret?

  On my own, I traveled to the city one day, with Hunchy guiding me around. It was a Friday. The thirteenth. All teenagers were about to celebrate it, watching silly movies and talking about it.

  Unlike the rest, I was there to get answers.

  But learning about how people responded to that day, I began to realize how much fun it was. In fact, this was my kind of fun. Wendy style. It was time to head into the woods with a few teenagers and spend the night in a dark cabin and lose my virginity, then die horribly by the blade or the chainsaw.

  Except that I was going to be the one with the chainsaw.

  “Wendy,” Hunchy said. “Do we really have to do this?”

  “It’s fun, Hunchy. We’re going to have so much fun.”

  “And what will my role be in all of this?”

  I neared him and whispered. “You’re going to be the bogeyman with the chainsaw outside,” I said. “At least, until only one or two are left. That’s when I come in and scare the fridays out of their souls.”

  “What will you be doing while I’m outside?”

  “I’ll be pretending I’m one of them, having spooky fun with them.”

  And so I made friends with a few teenagers, we went to the woods. It wasn’t that hard. I am very friendly and attractive when I want to be. I’m Sleeping Beauty.

  And there, in the cabin in the woods, some teenagers began talking about the things they knew about Friday the thirteenth.

  They told me the fear of Friday the thirteenth went back to 1700 B.C., when the ancient Babylon’s code of Hammurabi omitted the number thirteen in its list of laws because they feared it. I didn’t know who those Hammurabi were, nor did I care. I wasn’t looking for more people scared of the number and the day.

  They told me that the number thirteen was so unlucky, in fact, that in 1881 an organization called the Thirteen Club attempted to improve the number’s reputation.

  Then they told me about an eccentric Boston stockbroker called Thomas Lawson who published a book called Friday the Thirteenth in 1907. The book told of an evil businessman’s attempt to crash the stock market on the unluckiest day of the month.

  But none of that made sense to me. In fact, I knew much more than them. It seemed like they were really useless — like I’d expected them to be. It was time to have fun with them.

  The first thing I did was to suggest one of the muscular boys go out and find us wood for the fire in the cabin — it doesn’t get more cliché, does it?

  He didn’t want to, but did after I flirted with him a little.

  I went back and chatted with the youths, waiting for a scream or a panicked rap on the door.

  But it didn’t come.

  Where was Hunchy? Why wasn’t he terrorizing the boy outside?

  It was then when one of the teenagers told me about a strange story.

  “Did you ever hear about the war of colors?” she said, all her friends gathered in the room.

  “The war of colors?” I asked.

  “Black, White, and Red,” she said.

  Now she had my interest. The three colors of Sorrow. The three colors of my sister. One of the colors that I hated the most. “What about them?”

  “My grandmother used to tell me this story about an eternal war in what she called the fairy tale world,” the girl began.

  “And you believed her,” I laughed.
“There is no such thing as a fairy tale world.”

  “It’s Friday the thirteenth, Wendy,” another girl said. “Just humor her.”

  And now I was the outdated girl all of a sudden.

  “So the story goes like this,” the girl said. “In the fairy tale world, the three colors represent three forces. One evil. One Good. And the last one, a catalyst.”

  “The catalyst?” I said.

  “A force that is natural. Neither bad nor good.”

  “I see,” I said, not expecting what was coming next.

  “So the white force and the black were swans,” the girl began. “Like in Swan Lake, you know?”

  Everyone was interested now.

  “And they were sisters,” the girl said. “Twins.”

  I was really bothered by Hunchy’s delay right now. Why hadn’t he scared the boy in the woods yet? And this girl. Who is she? How does she know this story?

  Something was wrong.

  “The twin sisters, one evil, one good, were to shape the destiny of the world,” the girl began. “White Swan, Black Swan. One of them was going to win.”

  I couldn’t stop listening. “Who was the third force?” I had to ask.

  “A red force,” the girl’s eyes bulged. Wood crackled in the fire place, painting wavy shadows on the walls. Things were turning into a typical Friday the thirteenth night already.

  “What red force?” I asked.

  “Here is the thing,” the girl said. “Imagine the white and black forces on the sides of a scale, equally measured with a fifty-fifty chance.”

  “Okay?”

  “The red force was the one who was going to make the difference in the world; either aid the black force or the white. That’s why it is the catalyst.”

  When she said red, all I could think about was the images of blood on white swans. Remember when I said I’d rather spatter white swans with red instead of veiling them in black? But I couldn’t understand what the girl was saying.

  Then the knock on the door came.

  Finally!

  The boy was shouting outside. Scared as hell.

  I began to smile.

  The girls opened the door, and my version of a bloody nightmare on Friday the thirteenth began.

  “What’s going on?” one of the girls asked the boy.

  “The woods!” he panted and locked the door behind him. “It’s real. Something is in the woods.”

  “Really?” a skeptical girl in glasses retorted. She was probably the virgin one who lives in the end. “Like we’re going to believe you.”

  “You’re just trying to scare us because it’s Friday the thirteenth,” another girl said.

  “No,” the boy said. “You don’t understand. It’s real. There is something scary in the woods.”

  This is when a window crashed on its own in the living room. Well, I didn’t plan this, but Hunchy was improvising.

  Everyone began to panic. I loved it. Soon, I’d be sucking on their blood, although I wasn’t thirsty.

  Then the door to the cabin sprang open to a swirling wind. The door broke, and the panic levels escalated to madness. I took advantage of the moment and advised them to run outside, get in the car, and escape.

  Of course, the tires were flat, and now we ran, scattered, in the woods.

  I ran along, playing my part. Everyone was screaming. But only for a while.

  And then…

  The screams stopped.

  “Hunchy!” I called. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  Slowly, I began to realize that somehow the joke had turned on me. Everyone was gone, and I was left alone in the woods. Not that it scared me. But I had to know what was going on.

  This was an interesting Friday, indeed.

  Something swooshed before me in the dark. So fast I couldn’t see it.

  “Hunchy?” I grimaced.

  No reply.

  Now this was interesting. Did the boys and girls want to play a prank on me? I’d love to see the fear in their eyes when I killed them if that was the case.

  But time passed and no one came out. I was really alone in the woods now. Me and that swooshing figure in the dark.

  “Aren’t you going to show yourself?” I said. “Unless you’re scared of me.”

  “I’m not scared of you,” a voice said. It wasn’t Hunchy. Nor was it any of the boys and girl I’d befriended. It was a different girl.

  “Who are you?” I stopped in place. I was so curious — and entertained, I have to say. If you’re brave enough to scare me, I am really entertained by your naivety.

  “I know why people are scared of Friday the thirteenth,” the girl said.

  “You’re not going to tell me about all of those stupid theories again, are you?”

  “Facts, not theories, Wendy.”

  “Oh, so you know me.” I squinted in the dark, wondering why I couldn’t find the girl with all my vampire powers. This wasn’t an ordinary girl.

  “I know you very well.”

  “So tell me, if you do know, why are people scared of Friday the thirteenth? Is it an instinctual feeling buried in their ancestor’s memories like I heard?”

  “It is,” the girl said. “Something horrible happened on that day, a long time ago.”

  “Something like what?”

  “Something that the Piper hinted to you about.”

  “Ah, so you know the Piper too? Who are you?” I started not to like this.

  “People are scared of the day because…”

  “Because of what?”

  “It’s the day evil was born.”

  “Evil? Like devils and such?”

  “Worse, Wendy. Worse.”

  “Now you have to speak up,” I demanded, losing my temper.

  “It’s the day a woman named Carmilla Karnstein gave birth to a twin.”

  I shrieked.

  Somehow, deep inside, I realized I knew that. This was what it was all about. If you ask anyone why they really fear this day they will never be able to tell you why. And now I know. The Piper tried to tell me. It’s me. The world had not only crushed me from the day I was born, but it decided to honor me with the being the one of the sources of darkness itself.

  But why not? I’m fine with it. I’m fine with power. And now that I knew, I had one last request. “Why are you telling me then?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” the girl said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I am unlike you, Wendy. You are black in the heart and you love it,” the girl said. “I have another color in my heart, and I’m not sure how to use it. I’m not sure which side of the scale I should lean on.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “So it’s you. The red force, like the girl in the cabin said.”

  “It’s me.”

  “You’ve scared the boys and girls in the woods.”

  “A little, yes,” she said. “I even killed one of them.”

  I clapped my hands then rubbed them with enthusiasm. “That’s so enchanting, you have no idea.”

  “Why are you saying this?”

  “Because I could use a friend. A girl. I don’t have any. And maybe you should finally come to your senses and lean to my side. The Black Swan’s side.”

  “I’m not sure I’m that evil, Wendy. Not really sure if I am evil at all.”

  “Come on, you just killed one of the boys and girls in the woods. You said that.”

  “I killed the girl in the woods because she had to die. It wasn’t an act of evil.”

  I laughed on the inside. The logic of evil was like that. You’d first reason that the evil you did was necessary, then you’d simply become an addict to its power until you give in totally. I was beginning to like this girl. “Don’t worry, red force. Soon you’ll get used to it. It’s alright.”

  “You don’t understand, Wendy,” the girl said. “The one I killed had to die. It was a must. A destiny.” She stayed silent for a moment and then said, “Sometimes I have to kill peop
le. Even you; I will have to kill you someday.”

  “That’s ambitious.” I laugh aloud. “But you can’t kill me. I’m like nothing you’ve ever seen.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  That’s when I saw the girl’s silhouette in the dark.

  “You know that night you and your sister were born?” she asked.

  “Friday the thirteenth,” I said proudly. “Of course, what about it?”

  “I was born that night, too,” she said.

  And that’s when I started to get it. I understood what the red force is. Why Friday the thirteenth scared people. And who the girl really was.

  Slowly, a scythe gleamed into the light of the moon above. Then a red cape appeared through the dark.

  “Ladle?”

  “It’s me,” she smiled wickedly, squirrels jumping on her shoulders. “Death. The red force. The one who’s destined to either stand by your side or Snow White’s.”

  “You were born the same night?”

  She nodded. “The universe brought the three of us into this world on that night. The universe had a plan. Black for evil. White for good. Red for… I’m not sure why yet.”

  “That’s why the girl you just killed had to die,” I said. “It was her time. The Tree of Life told you. Her name appeared in the cookie.”

  Ladle nodded, waving her scythe. “You know whose name came in the cookie, too?”

  My black swan face went red.

  “Yours, Wendy.” Ladle smiled.

  “It can’t be. I’m sure my time hasn’t come yet.”

  “No, it didn’t,” she said. “The fortune cookie told me about your date of death, Wendy.”

  “Why would the Tree of Life do that?”

  “Because you’re special, Wendy. So am I. I was given the chance either to join you, or kill you when the time comes.”

  “I can live with that,” I said, chin up. “I will wreak chaos onto the world, and take revenge before my time comes. Be sure of that.”

  “I’m sure you will do that,” Ladle said. “I am just not sure who I will support. You or your sister.”

  I tried to speak but she shushed me with her scythe. It was times like these when I’m not sure who is stronger than who.

  “I will go now,” she said. “But I want to tell you one last thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Of all people in the world you should fear Friday the thirteenth the most.”