The Grimm Diaries Prequels Volume 11- 14: Children of Hamlin, Jar of Hearts, Tooth & Nail & Fairy Tale, Ember in the Wind, Welcome to Sorrow, and Happy Valentine's Slay. (2 page)

   Ten o’clock was the time the children had to go to bed. Still, the mischievous children never slept in time. They loved to stay awake until the clock struck midnight. That was scary things started happening, and the children where curious to know what. They tried their best to poke their noses out into the darkness of the night.

It was better that they didn’t. I didn’t want them to face the Boogeyman who came out of the closet after midnight, the goblins who ate young girls, the werewolves, the vampires, or the scary ghosts.

After I made sure the children were asleep, I had to walk back to my house in the darkest of nights with no one to take care of me or protect me. Only one generous girl, the Moongirl, cared for me. As I am writing this, there is an imposter moon shining in Sorrow’s night sky. I wonder who it might be, and who is controlling it.

One day, some of the awful children dressed me up in a rabbit’s costume while I was asleep. I woke up to the sound of my pocket-watch chiming right before ten o’clock, and I had to go out to make sure the children were asleep. I didn’t stop to look in the mirror to see that I looked like a walking-talking rabbit.

Running into town, or rather ‘
into toon
’ like the Scotts like to say, children laughed at me because of my flapping long rabbit ears and padded pink big legs. It took me a while to understand why they mocked me. I remember one respectful man, summoning me out of his window to point out why. When I approached him, I saw he was a writer. He had a rather peculiar writing desk, the color of ravens.

“What is it, sir?” I asked. “Please, I have no time. I am in a hurry. The Queen of the land demanded that I make sure the children are sleep before ten o’clock.”

“Well, you won’t be able to do that looking like you do right now.” the decent man told me.

“Looking like what?”

“Like that!” he showed me my reflection in a peculaiar looking glass. I saw I was looking back at a rabbit with a pocket-watch.

“It must be the awful bullies who did that to me,” I said. “Thank you for telling me, Mr…?”

“Call me Carroll,” he stretched out his hand, and I shook it. “Lewis Carroll.”

“I assume it’s not your real name, sir. Am I right?” I said.

Mr. Carroll laughed. “Most of us don’t tell our real names. You know about the power of names, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I said. “Does this mean I shouldn’t tell you my name, Sir?”

“I know
your
name,” he winked. “Everyone knows you’re Willie Winkie.”

“Thank you for telling me why they were laughing at me,” I said as I took off the rabbit outfit. “I’m curious, sir. Are you writing a book?”

“Yes,” he nodded, and then asked if he could keep the rabbit costume. “In fact, you’ve just given me an idea about a character in my book,” he said.

“Really?” my eyes widened. I had never met a writer before, and I was proud to inspire one.

“A rabbit with a pocket watch, late for the Queen,” Mr. Carroll winked at me. “I will make sure I will have that kind of character in my book.”

“Are you going to name him Willie Winkie?” I asked him.

“Of course, not,” he laughed again. “I am going to name him Rabbit. Thanks for the inspiration, though. Now go, you have a job to do. Get those children to sleep. I am trying to write a book here.”

I walked away that night, and never met Mr. Carroll again. Sometimes, I wonder what his book was about.

The point of this story is to let you know that if I want to write a diary, I will tell you that I am Willie Winkie, now grown up and old and known as Sandman Grimm. This way, the Queen won’t be able to fool you again.

And if you’re wondering about that other guy named Willy Wonka, well, I came first, and my rhymes were written about two centuries ago. I actually like this Willy Wonka a lot, but can’t help but think he was named, somehow, after me.

The rest of the nursery rhyme explains a lot more about who I was. You can check it out and read some books about it, but that’s not why I am writing this short diary.

I’m writing it to tell you a little more about my favorite characters in the Sorrow up until now. I noticed you might want to know how they related, their insecurities, and how they dealt with each on a regular day. I was able to gather some information about how they spend Valentine’s Day by picking up scrap from each one’s diary about a night they had spend together.

Everything I am about to tell you occurred prior to Snow White’s incident when she was sixteenth, an incident historians sometimes call the Night of Jar of Hearts. It occurred about six month later after Snow White has escaped her mother’s hunter, hid in a cottage in the forest with the Lost Seven, and had tricked played a huge trick on the Queen and the work; a trick that eventually cause the Brothers Grimm to curse all the fairy tale characters later.

There is also one other thing that I’d like to point out, and that would be that this diary holds no lies between its pages. I might have missed a point or two, or misinterpreted someone’s emotions because I wrote it from my own point of view, but I am the Sandman and I don’t lie. I allowed myself to fill in the characters’ thoughts from the experience I had with them in the main diaries. I think I understand their motives and reasons better now.

I’d like to start with Jack Madly—my own favorite character…

Jack spent his days stealing from the Goblin Market, for no other reason than to get the goblins mad – and save the children they were about to eat, of course.

Jack also stole as much as he could from the Queen. It made him feel good to be able to steal from the most powerful person in the land. The Queen owned some of the most interesting curiosities he’d even seen, and they proved to be useful from time to time.

Later, he gave back food and money to the homeless and cursed children, which had a story of their own that I might mention later. He would sit next to the children, preaching that they should eat so they could grow up and be strong, that they should learn the alphabet and educate themselves. Jack’s grandmother, Madly, had taught him the alphabet, but he still didn’t read that well, which was a bit unexpected for a boy who demanded books written about him.

Ironically, he warned the kids from becoming thieves. He promised them he’d provide them with everything they needed, only if they’d never took the road he’d taken as a thief.

Sometimes, he thought about his grandmother Madly, who had a long, complicated story of her own, too. He wondered if she knew about his parents, if they had also been thieves like him, and why, or
if
they had ever tried looking for him since he had never met them. He also suspected that Madly was not his real grandmother, but he didn’t want to ask and end up finding out that the only person he idolized was a fake. Jack had a lot of unanswered questions, but one that really nagged him was why Madly had given him the magical seashell necklace.

Before the thought was reshaped by reason, the beanstalk shook underneath him and the clouds rained with the arrival of the giant troll who lived around somewhere.

“Yikes!” Jack said. “Gotta get out of here,” he climbed down the beanstalk with a fistful of beans in his hands, remembering the crazy story of how he’d got them. He had never told anyone about it.

At night, when the giant had dissappeared, Jack retreated back into the clouds among the beanstalks. He preferred to stay alone, watching the moon and wondering if she were the girl he had met, and if she would ever come back. Adjusting his hat, Jack wondered if she died, or if something bad happened to her. He remembered that if something bad had happened, the necklace would have given her a new life and a new body. It should’ve kept her safe. He laughed when he remembered telling the Moongirl that there was a cow up in the moon. She had gotten very angry, and now he was so sorry he had said it. He would’ve given anything in the world to meet her again, even his precious hat – which had an even more bizarre story by the way.

   In the midst of his romantic moment talking to the moon up in the sky, a nagging voice summoned him from below.

“Jack! Jack!” a girl’s voice called. “It’s me, Marmalade.”

Jack puffed and pursed his lips. “Can’t she ever leave me alone?” he sighed, getting off his hemlock. “What?” he yelled back. “I am showering. I am naked. It’s not a good time, Marmalade.”

“You rarely shower, Jack,” she called. “And you did see me naked before, so we’re even.”

“I saw you half-naked, that’s not naked! And it was because you like to sit half-naked by the shore, combing your hair. It’s not my fault. I don’t like anyone seeing
me
naked.”

“It’s a mermaid’s thing. You don’t understand,” she yelled.

“Well, mine is a
Jack thing
that mermaids don’t understand.”

“Don’t be silly. Let me up,” she demanded. “Or do you have someone with you? Is it that tanned girl with the beautiful dreadlocks we saw yesterday?”

Marmalade was getting on Jack’s nerves lately. She was always jealous he could be with another girl up there, and she never left him alone. Jack didn’t have anything against her, though. He considered her a good friend but she wanted more, and he was lonely, so he relented and spent time with her while he really wanted to be with the Moongirl.

It puzzled him why he was sure the girl he had met was the moon. Why did he have this feeling? Was he just daydreaming, trying to persuade himself that she was the moon? Did he have to live with the fact that he’d never see her again? Maybe she was just a normal girl who disappeared with the wind.

   But Marmalade wasn’t that bad, Jack thought. She was beautiful, a mermaid, and was too funny to be true. She had the most amazing twinkle in her eyes when she laughed. It almost made him think he had known her for a very long time.
She’s Marmalade, the name your grandmother had mentioned. She’s your soul mate and your destiny. Don’t you get it?
Jack had his heart stick captured by the Moongirl, even though there was nothing wrong about Marmalade.

Well, she did walk around semi-naked sometimes. But hell, she was a mermaid. She couldn’t help it. It would was natural for her to dress that way, and she didn’t understand when people looked at her.

In Jack’s mind, the only thing was nagging about Marmalade was that she wasn’t the girl with the bright halo shining from underneath her black cloak.

“I am not with someone else,” he mumbled, throwing her a couple of beans down the beanstalk so she could plant them and get up. Marmalade had asked for some of his magic beans repeatedly, but Jack refused. It was like giving your not-so-sure girlfriend the keys to the house.

Once Marmalade reached the top, she kissed Jack, wrapping her arms around him. Jack stood as stiff as a witch’s broom. She always did that. She was a touchy-feely person. She loved to hold hands, cuddle and hug, and kiss a lot. He never understood that but he didn’t mind. She was different from all the regular girls he’d known. He knew she’d do anything for him, even die for him. Still, deep in his soul, he questioned his grandmother’s sanity predicting his love for a girl called Marmalade.

Actually, meeting Marmalade was too much of a coincidence. Jack was a free soul. He refused to be bound by foretold destinies. What was the fun in that?

Marmalade on the other hand was dying on the inside when she had to be away from him. She didn’t know many people out there in Sorrow, and always got into trouble, even when she was not naked and dressed properly. She was living here, trying her best to get Jack to love her while he loved someone else, who ironically was her other self. She just couldn’t tell him, or they’d both die as the curse had implied.

Sometimes, she wondered about how long it’d take them to die after she told him. What if it took a day before they died? That would be enough, right? One day together as lovers was better than a lifetime trying to make a person love you, pretending you’re someone else. But would she possibly know if there would be enough time if she told him? What if they died instantly?

Marmalade had been searching high and low for a cure to this curse, but no one could help her. She even thought of digging up grandmother Madly from her grave to ask.

All she could do was swim back to that lake next to the Goblin Market and get the necklace. As she searched for the necklace, she found that there were many children who had drowned in that lake. It was something that disturbed her a lot, but she thought she’d investigate it later. She wanted to know if the children at the bottom of the lake had drowned by accident If they had been killed, who was it and why did they kill them?

Another thing that troubled Marmalade was that she didn’t have friends. She dove in the ocean and the sea, but didn’t find other mermaids. It left her feeling that she was alone in this world when she wasn’t around Jack.

One day she found two girly creatures who looked like her in a far away ocean. When she approached them, they tried to hurt her so she swam away. Was it because she wasn’t born a mermaid that they disliked her?

She later discovered they were sirens, the darker side of mermaids.

Marmalade had no one but Jack, and although she loved him dearly, he was difficult to live with sometimes. A bit moody, too. There was something about him that he had kept secret and never spoke about. She knew that because sometimes he woke up screaming at night. She never dared to ask him about his dark dreams.

Sometimes, she gazed up at the imposter moon and wondered who it was. Did the creators simply substitute her, or was there another dark force controlling the moon? The second thought sounded just about right because the creatures of the night were spreading everywhere, and the moon did nothing about them.

Marmalade was an outcast, almost a sinner who didn’t do her job well, transformed into a new life-form she didn’t know anything about. She was hopelessly in love with Jack Madly, and he didn’t love her back.

“I’ll tell you what,” Jack offered to Marmalade. “Let’s get down for a while. Let’s enjoy time with the other little friends we have.”

“You mean you want to go out?” Marmalade was happy. Jack was the biggest introvert, an unexpected trait for a thief who silently slipped into people’s houses everyday. Maybe it was the dark secrets he had learned about people from the houses that made him prefer loneliness over socializing. Or, maybe it was the dark secret in his dreams that made him rarely want to mingle with others.