The Grimm Diaries Prequels Volume 15 - 18 (3 page)

Lady Shallot also said that she’d not be around, but if we ever needed
her again, we should swim into the ocean with the intention of finding her.

… Days passed and we lived in the kingdom, hoping for a happy ever after
…

It is impossible to tell you every detail of the events which followed in
such a short diary. Thus,
I will only mention
certain incidents leading to the
reveal of one
of my darkest secrets.

Although we never knew who the Children of Hamlin were, we treated
everyone equally, encouraged them and helped them create bigger families, work
hard, and feel at home.

I tried my best to befriend everyone, while welcoming new families sent
by Lady Shallot. The number of new residents increased day by day. But in spite
of the lovely world we created, Angel was still worried his father would find
us.

“Relax, Angel,” I would say, watching him spend the days teaching young
men how to fight vampires, instead of enjoying being a king. “Lady Shallot has
woven the most beautiful kingdom for us. We should enjoy it.”

“She has weaved us a kingdom, but I doubt her threads could weave our
fates,” Angel answered, leaving the castle to train the young warriors.

Although I hated him sometimes for leaving me, I knew he was right. In my
short life, I had learned that happiness and peace were beautiful, but
temporary. Nothing in this world, however hard we fight for it, lasts. And it’s
usually not because we messed up, but because like Lady Shallot had said, the
universe, in its most mysterious ways, demands balance. And someone’s balance
is always someone else’s imbalance.

Eventually, we lost our balance
in the
Kingdom of Sorrow.

One day, we woke up and found a man dead. He was murdered. He wasn’t
bitten. It didn’t make a difference. If evil from the outside hadn’t pounded
the kingdom’s gates yet, then it had seeped through the pores of people’s
hearts.

After investigating the murders, we learned that people complained about
the light in the kingdom. It was true they had the glittering apples and
fireflies, but they said they weren’t enough to light a man’s destiny at night
when the creatures came out—and it was apparent we had some of those by now.

“We need to talk to Lady Shallot,” I said to Angel.

“About what?”

“The light,” I said. “Remember when she said the kingdom she was sewing
needed a sun and a moon? We need a sun to light up the roads, or the darkness
in this kingdom will arise.”

“I agree,” Angel sighed, and left the castle.

What happened to Angel after that remained a mystery to me. I only knew
bits and pieces of the story. I knew that he dove into the ocean’s waters, and
swam to find Lady Shallot’s rocky island again. I didn’t know what happened
after he found her, although I should’ve guessed when he returned to the castle
with a baby in his arms seven days later.

“Who is it?” I asked, unable to see if it was a boy or a girl. “It’s so
young. Was it just born?”

“About three days old.” Angel held it tightly, stopping me from holding
it or seeing its gender. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Lady Shallot said that it’s
only me who can hold it.”

“Why?” I loved kids, and I was curious about this one. I swear I could
see an orange light shimmering from between Angel’s hands. A lovely light. It
reflected on his face, as if he were holding a shimmering candlestick.

“I have no idea,” he said reluctantly. I knew he was keeping something
from me. “It’s her rules. You wanted light. I brought you light.”

“What do you mean?”

“This baby is the…” he hesitated.

“Is what?”

“Our sun,” Angel said, as its rays shone onto his face. “The Kingdom of
Sorrow’s sun,” Angel smiled.

“The sun is a baby?”

“Lady Shallot said that each world needed a sun, and that they were
babies with special powers,” Angel explained. “And this one is
our
sun.”
The way he said ‘sun’ sounded like our
son
for a moment. It was the
first time I knew that I would die to have a child of my own; I’d die to have
my own with Angel, and watch him hold it so tentatively like that.

“We only have to feed it and take care of it for a couple of days, and
then there is a little ritual that Shallot taught me to perform—alone—so it
will find its way up to the sky.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with this ‘alone’ thing,” I said, even though
I was happy with it. In fact, I was enchanted by the rays of light filling the
castle. Angel was embracing
sunlight
in his arms. Would it have been
possible to have our sun inside the castle? I didn’t dare to ask.

“It’s just for the ritual,” Angel cuddled the baby, golden light passing
through his fingers. “You will have your sun that will light up the days for
our people, and prevent crime and darkness. This way, we’ll have no more
murders in Sorrow.”

I nodded.

You might not believe it, but I was feeling jealous of the sun in my
husband’s caring hands. Was it a boy, a girl, or was the sun sexless? Why
didn’t he want me to know?

“So who will feed it?” I said.

“I will,” he almost pulled it closer to him. “That’s part of the ritual.
Three days, and then we'll
have a protecting sun
in our sky.”

It was a promise he fulfilled.

Three days later, we were celebrating with the peasants and the honorable
people of Sorrow in the Schloss. We celebrated the sun shining in Sorrow’s
skies. It was a grand event, unforgettable and most enchanting.

At first, we all had problems opening our eyes in the glaring light, or
walking beneath its heat softly kissing our skin. We’d been living in the
semi-dark for some time, only ushered by glittering golden apples and
fireflies. Some people invented their own protective aid—like pulling down a
shawl on their eyes—until they got used to it.

I had no problem staring at it for hours, knowing that behind that
glaring light, there was a child, maybe tucked in its own golden cradle,
bending its knees and arms like my future child would do in our royal cradle.
It was a beautiful thought. I was so curious to know more about it. Was it
going to grow up there, or was it going to stay a baby forever? Angel said I
should never ask.

The sun proved it could protect the people with its light. No more
killings under the sun, and no more crimes occurred—I had heard rumors that
thieves and burglars feared it, and thought it was God’s golden all-seeing eye
in the sky.

It proved to be even more beneficial for the crops and the trees,
attracting birds and other magical creatures. Also, the sun had neighboring
worlds, weaved by Lady Shallot, notice us because of it. We had new visitors,
newcomers wanting to work and reside in Sorrow; the kingdom that was expanding
and getting stronger by the light of our new sun.

I didn’t quite understand where the neighboring kingdoms came from. I
just understood that there were other worlds on the back of other whales in the
ocean. How many worlds did Lady Shallot create? Did she also create the other
world back there on the shore? Were we safe, especially from Angel’s vicious
father by exposing ourselves through our sun?

I had no answers to theses questions at the time.

What happened was that darkness in people’s hearts, although chained by
the light of the sun, still found its way to the night. Darkness always found
its way, believe me I know, but so did the light. It’s another universal
equilibrium of sorts.

But the sun, as usual, sank into ocean, sleeping at its bed by night. And
that’s when the killing, stealing, and the rise of demonic creatures threatened
the nights in Sorrow—we didn’t know that many of them were creatures sent by
Night Sorrow at the time.

I asked Angel if the sun could stay up day and night. He said that it
needed to sleep just like us. Of course, it was human after all.

Then I suggested that we needed a moon. It was the sensible thing to ask,
jut like where I grew up in Austria. Everywhere in the Ordinary World, there
was always a moon. Only I had never understood the moon wasn’t there only as an
eye candy, symbolizing romance. The moon had been weaved to protect the people
of the night from the beginning of time. We just took it for granted.

“I will swim to Lady Shallot tomorrow,” Angel said in a confident way. I
had a feeling that he knew exactly where to get a moon. “You stay here,
darling. It will only take seven days.”

I hated when Angel played me for a fool—although he thought it was for my
own protection. I followed him in an enchanted canoe that was immune to sinking
in the ocean—I wished we'd had it when we spent seven days in the ocean. I
owned one now because I had learned witchcraft from the immigrants of Sorrow,
and I was good at it.

In the middle of the ocean, I waited for Angel as he left Lady Shallot’s
tower and swam ahead. I followed him but the ocean grew angrier, its tides
pushing at me and threatening my fall. Then I lost track of Angel.

Half a day later, I came upon a very small island. I stopped by it, and
explored it a little. It was dark so there wasn’t a lot to see. However, a
faint yellowish light showed in the distance. Another tower.

Once I arrived, I saw Angel inside. He was standing next to a woman
sleeping in a coffin half-filled with water. I couldn’t
see
whether she was dead or alive. Was she
his mistress? Was he being unfaithful to me?

Of course, you’d wonder how the Queen of Sorrow would feel insecure and
jealous. That’s because there is so much about me you don’t know. Thanks to the
Brothers Grimm.

I hid somewhere safe, so Angel wouldn’t see me.

The woman sleeping in the coffin was most probably dead—sedated at the very
least. She lay on her back, her hair floating on the water, like curvy octopus
arms. I couldn’t see her face, though.

Angel knelt down to talk to someone standing next to the coffin. There
were a number of little children. I couldn’t hear all the conversation, but I
think I heard something about the woman having been asleep for a hundred years.

After a while, two young girls entered a nearby room and came back with a
baby in their hands. It was a cute girl, born a couple of days ago, I assumed.
They gave it to Angel, who held it as tenderly as he had held the sun-baby
before. This baby shimmered with light as well, only it was a different light.
It was glowing white as it reached for Angel’s stubble.

This baby was the moon. The Kingdom of Sorrow’s moon.

Angel didn’t say much as he took it with him, and swam back to Sorrow. As
I discreetly followed him, I had too many questions on my mind. I wanted to
know who gave birth to these babies. Was it the woman floating unconsciously in
the water? If so, who was she, and how can she give
birth to the moon? And again, how come the sun and the moon were babies?

Back in the castle, I pretended I knew nothing. I didn’t want to upset
Angel. I knew that there must have been a serious reason why he wasn’t telling
me. I respected that—at least, I tried to convince myself I did.

He showed me the baby. Three days later, we celebrated our new moon in
Sorrow—the
girl
who was our new moon.

As people celebrated the moon, I wondered if the sun was another girl; or
was it a boy? Was I supposed to not know about it forever? It confused me.

In the middle of my confusion, I knew that seeing those beautiful babies
in Angel’s arms made me want a child of my own more and more. My desire for
Motherhood was consuming my soul. I knew in my heart that I was born to be a
mother, and
seeing Angel cradle newborns that
weren't ours was agonizing.

It was time to have a child, and I wished to God it was going to be as beautiful
as the moon.

But Angel didn’t want to have children. Not at all.

It seemed contradictory, seeing how tenderly he loved the baby sun and
baby moon, and refused to have a child of his own. I still didn’t argue. I knew
we had been through a lot, and that he was afraid someone would try to hurt our
child.

There was no rush, I thought. We had overcome a lot, and we were gifted
with a new kingdom of residence, a new moon and sun, and we had become king and
queen at a young age. I had to cherish the moment and start living.

Each day I woke up with a smile on my face, waving at the sun, wishing it
would wink back at me, acknowledging that she—or he—knew me. But it didn’t.
Neither did the baby moon, who was rumored to descend late at night to fight
the nocturnal creatures that threatened the beautiful people of Sorrow.

Some nights, I woke up in the middle of the night and the moon wasn’t up
there. Then I’d glimpse a beautiful girl in a black cloak out in the castle’s
garden playing. She had that halo light shimmering from under her cloak. Only
once did she wave at me—or so I thought.

Even without a child of my own, everything was still good, until one
horrible day when Night Sorrow found us.

I am oblivious to
how he did it. Angel
once asked Lady Shallot, and she didn’t know herself how he was able to enter
the realm of our kingdom. All we knew was that he intended to hurt us.

My witchcraft skills came in handy at the time. I was taught by an
immigrant woman called Dame Gothel, and I was able to enchant the borders of
our kingdom with spells that prevented the Sorrows from entering. One of them
was a magical thorn bush that differentiated locals from intruders by slashing
at their bodies and tasting their blood. I called it the Wall of Thorns.

Later, Angel began his war on the borders against his own family. It was
a war that never ended; a war that kept Angel away from me, and it drove me
crazy.

I knew I had to stay strong and backup my beloved husband, but it was
time he approved of
me having a child.

I would write in detail how Angel finally came to say yes, but that would
also take another diary. It’s not as important as what’s about to be revealed.