Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

7 A Field of Dreams

“To get to the Sandman’s Field of Dreams, we have to cross the Juniper Trees and the Wall of Thorns first,” Cerené said after a long walk.

Shew knew about the Juniper Trees. Each tree had a single eye at the end of its branches and used it to spy on intruders in forbidden regions. It was rumored that each tree had a soul of a child trapped in it, children who’d been killed in ancient wars. In comparison to everything else in Sorrow, the Juniper Trees were not to be feared.

What worried Shew was the mention of the Wall of Thorns, which was one of the barriers Carmilla had created with witchcraft to protect them from Night Sorrow’s army—this part always confused Shew. Wasn’t Carmilla already on Night Sorrow’s side after turning into a vampire? She believed that time was going to reveal something about it.

As for the Wall of Thorns, it was a magical thorn bush that cut through the trespassers trying to leave or enter Sorrow. The thorn cut a person to taste their blood and determine whether they were Night Sorrow’s intruders or locals. The tree thought of them as enemies and friends. If friends, it let them pass, whether in or out of Sorrow. If enemies, it tortured them by playing an irresistible musical tune that made one dance uncontrollably and eventually dance themselves to death in the thorn bush.

No intruder had ever passed through the Wall of Thorns—at least, none heard of—and few locals dared their way out.

Cerené’s suggestion was madness itself.

“Wait,” Shew grabbed her hand. “We’re not going to pass through. We’ll die and you know that.”

“You have to trust me, Joy,” Cerené said, and kept walking.

“Stop calling me Joy,” Shew stopped walking.

“Why? I love the name. You are my Joy in this Kingdom of Sorrow.”

“Cerené,” Shew called out. “Please stop.”

“Alright, princess,” Cerené stomped her feet. She wanted to walk farther. She wanted to play, and Shew was spoiling the fun. “I am all ears.”

“You know we’ll die if we cross the Wall of Thorns, right?”

“No, we won’t,” Cerené set her urn on the ground and folded her arms. “One can die easier by living in the Kingdom of Sorrow.”

Shew said nothing. Cerené hit the jackpot with that last sentence, but there was a difference between dying and suicide.

“All you need is to trust me,” Cerené unfolded her hands and started pleading like a child. “I wouldn’t hurt you, ever. If you’re worried about Night Sorrow’s army, let me tell you that this spot in the Wall of Thorns doesn’t lead directly to the outside. It leads to the Field of Dream which also called the Field In Between. I don’t know much about it, but if you see it, you will love it.”

“The Field in Between what?”

“I wish I knew, but it’s a place that is neither inside of Sorrow nor outside. Like I said, I had nothing to do in my spare time without friends or caring people but read. I read all the books I found in the school’s library, dusty books, books with no cover, and vintage books that had been handwritten,” Cerené said. “Have I lied about anything I told you about before?”

“What about the thorn bush?” Shew said reluctantly.

“What about it? We’re locals, not intruders. It will see us as friends, not enemies. We’ll pass. It’s just a little scratch. You’ll bleed, but not too much. Look!” Cerené pulled up the bottom of her dress and showed multiple scratches on her thighs. There were a lot and Cerené had just realized just how many by showing them to Shew. Some wounds never show, not even in the mirror, until we see them in the expressions on the faces of people we love. “Wow, that’s a lot of wounds,” Cerené uttered and laughed out of discomfort.

Shew wondered if this was the right time to ask her about her wounds.

It wasn’t.

Cerené was too happy with her magical adventure, and Shew didn’t want to spoil it for her.

“All right,” Shew nodded hesitantly. “Let’s do it.”

A while later, Cerené walked through the Wall of Thorns like a ghost through a curtain. She was tiny and thin—Shew believed she’d become so used to pain that the thorns scratching her body didn’t mean anything to her. She watched trickles of blood dripping from under Cerené’s dress before she disappeared behind the bushes into the Field of Dreams.

“See? I am here already,” Cerené said from behind the bushes.

Shew couldn’t see her. She only saw a magnificent light peering through from behind the bushes. In her mind, the light had no certain color. It was like nothing she’d even seen before. It was just magnificent.

A first reluctant step drew Shew closer to the thorn bush. The first cut was the deepest. The thorns sliced through her white and expensive dress and stained it with blood immediately. It was as if her dress craved blood.

Why does it have to hurt so much like in the real world? This is a dream for God’s sake!

Shew’s second cut was alarming. The thorn bush went crazy and slashed at her face slightly.

Why did she provoke the thorns, and why was that eerie flute playing nearby?

“Shew!” Cerené yelled. “What happened? I can’t see you. Why is that Dark Tune playing? How is this possible?”

Shew was speechless. She could feel the melody possessing her soul. The stories she’d heard about the Wall of Thorns were true. The music from the flute was part of Mozart’s the Magic Flute, the piece Oddly Tune was teaching her right before he turned into a werewolf.

What does this mean? Shut up! There is no time to understand. You should focus on WHY the music is playing. The Wall of Thorns only detects intruders.

“What is going on, Shew?” Cerené cried out beyond the thorns. “I’m coming for you. Wait!”

“No!” Shew managed to say, resisting the urge in her feet to dance in the thorn bush. “Stay where you are, Cerené!”

Shew, in the middle of her panic, wondered if this was why Loki didn’t come to kill her. Maybe the Queen of Sorrow figured out a way for Snow White to kill herself. If so, that would have been some genius plan, to send her back to a memory in her childhood were she should have died naturally.

Nonsense! Shew breathed in deeply as the thorns crawled and spiraled around her with their needle-sharp edges waiting for her to start dancing.

The Queen of Sorrow can’t kill me because I split my heart into seven pieces, and she needs to find them. Maybe Cerené is one of the Lost Seven. Maybe this is what this dream is all about.

She wanted to bend down and scream at her fidgeting legs, which desperately wanted to dance against her will.

The Lost Seven mean nothing at this point, because you’re not sixteen years old yet. She can kill you right now before splitting your heart. You know that if she changes the past in the Dreamworld, the future will change in the Waking World.

Shew raised her hands slowly and clapped her ears so she wouldn’t hear the Dark Tune.

It didn’t work.

A couple of thorns slashed at her hands.

“Why in the name of Sorrow is this music playing?” Shew let out a loud scream.

Then it hit her right in the face.

Of course, the music had to play. Shew wasn’t purely a local. It was true she was born in Sorrow, but in her blood, ancestry, and family tree, she was an evil Sorrow, a real one, a descendant of Night Sorrow, the most vicious vampire in the world. That is why the mermaid told Cerené she feared Shew at the lake that she hadn’t decided whose side she was on. To the Wall of Thorns, Shew was still an enemy.

She wondered how her father ever crossed over to fight the Intruders. He was also a blood descendant of the Sorrows. In many ways, they were both locals of the kingdom but also intruders. The Wall of Thorns decided to treat her as an intruder, and to kill her. At the time of this memory, she wasn’t immortal yet—and how about Carmilla, or was she immune because the wall was her own magic?

Shew couldn’t resist anymore and began dancing to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Although she gave it her best shot, the pain was too strong and she began to faint, her throbbing eyes flickering her way to her last visions of life. She was dying in her own dream, which meant she would stay in a Sleeping Death forever in the Waking World, a coma that no kiss could cure.

Carmilla had won after all.