Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

8 A Never Ending Dream

Fable’s eyes flung open.

It was already daylight, and Axel was still sprawled on the floor next to her. He looked rather funny; his mouth was wide open as if waiting for someone to feed him a sandwich while asleep.

She gazed up at the Schloss’ ceiling, wondering how long she had been unconscious. Her head was heavy, and she couldn’t remember what exactly had taken place.

All she could remember was a vague bang in her head and someone—or something—laughing at her.

She felt weak and hungry, and for the first time she was glad Axel brought his food-stuffed backpack with him. She crawled over, accidentally kicking Axel’s head.

Opening it, she looked for a bag of Tragic Beans or maybe a Reluctant Jelly, but found none. She found a single Poisoned Apple but stopped before grabbing it.

What’s the point of eating an apple that makes you faint while you’re already feeling dizzy?

Axel’s backpack was full as if he was going for picnic. Some of the food was new to her.

The first thing she pulled out was a small box labeled Dr. Rumpelstein’s Awful Pudding. The idea was to eat through the rotten pudding in hopes to win a gold coin. If don’t find it, you’d end in Sorrow’s clinic for pudding-poisoning. If you happened to find the gold coin, you’d probably end up in Sorrow’s Clinic, too, only you have enough money to pay for it this time. Fable decided to pass. She hated anything Rumpelstein anyways, which reminded her suddenly of Lucy.

She threw a look around, but Lucy was nowhere around.

There was a bag in Axel’s bag labeled Talking Mushrooms. Fable threw it away, wondering if it was the reason behind Axel’s non-stop talking.

Then she found a bag of Princess Pees, which she thought sounded fine. The name Princess Peas suited it better, but what the heck, this was Sorrow.

Finally, she found a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs, which came with bugs or bugs-free. The picture on the cover showed a frog with a long red tongue snatching a flying bug.

“Yuck,” she said. “Loki would have hated this.”

Fable’s eyes widened.

Loki! I remember now. His laughing wind knocked us down. I was trying to stop him from killing Shew.

“Wake up, Fable,” she knocked on her head as if it were a coconut. “You’ve got a job to do.”

She remembered running after Loki, trying to stop him from killing Snow White.

“Axel,” she shook her brother. “Wake up!”

“What is it?” Axel moaned. “No school today.”

“Axel! We’re not in Candy House. We’re in the Schloss. Wake up,” Fable unpacked a bag of Sticky Cinnamon Frogs and spilled its contents on him. The frogs were alive, croaking and hopping all around Axel and licking his face. They must have thought he was one big bug.

“What did you do?” Axel woke up, snapping. “What a waste of food. I was going to eat them later.”

“We need to save Snow White,” Fable sneered at him.

“Isn’t that the seven dwarves job?” Axel stretched his arms, still moaning.

“What are you talking about? Not that Snow White; the other Snow White?” Fable frowned, adjusting her glasses.

“Snow White isn’t even real, Fable,” Axel said. “Go to sleep.”

“Wake up or I’ll snap witchcraft on you,” Fable pulled him by the sleeve. “Remember, we were trying to stop Loki because the Queen was controlling him by using his Fleece?”

“Oh,” Axel blinked, munching on one of the poor frogs. “I remember now. It’s kind of hard not thinking of all of this as a dream—but anyways. Mircalla fooled us all. I wonder why she’s been taking care of us all this time?”

“I bet we have something that is valuable to her,” Fable said, “But right now we have to concentrate on saving Shew.”

“Now you’re not making sense,” Axel burped. “Why would we want to save a shoe?”

“Shew, Axel,” Fables pulled his food away. “Remember Loki said her mother called her Shew?”

Axel nodded, “Yeah, sorry. Forgot again.”

“And where is Lucy?” Fable wondered.

“Lucy?” Axel said her name as if he were in love with her. “I don’t know. I remember the Queen playing Loki like a marionette and leading him back to the Schloss. Then you chanted an incantation that freed us from being bonded to chairs.”

“That’s right,” Fable said. “Then we ran after Loki. I haven’t seen Lucy since.”

“Maybe she went with the Queen,” Axel said. “Didn’t you notice how much she is infatuated by her?”

“That could be. It’s time to take action,” Fable said, turning around and walking toward Shew’s room. “We have to help her.”

“Wait,” Axel said in the hallway. “Loki must have staked her and entered her dream by now. How are we going to save her, or save him?”

“All we have to do is pull the stake out of Shew, and she’ll wake up immediately,” Fable said. “As for Loki, he told you to break the mirror if we can’t wake him up. It should break the connection in the Dreamworld.”

Reaching Shew’s room, they both stopped. They didn’t expected what they saw.

Instead of finding Loki and Shew sleeping side by side, they found the Dream Temple encircled by a protective purple light, which they couldn’t see through.

“Is that a Star Trek teleportation system?” Axel rubbed his eyes.

“Of course, not. Shut up, Axel,” Fable approached it reluctantly. “I wonder if I could walk through it,” Fable mumbled.

“No,” Axel hurried after her. “We don’t know what could happen to us inside. We don’t know what it is. We could be pulled into the Dreamworld, and we’re neither Dreamers nor Dreamhunters. This is too dangerous for us.”

“What kind of dream is this?” Fable said. “This isn’t like the dreams we saw Loki enter before. It’s daylight, and he entered the dream a little after midnight. It’s been way longer than forty two minutes.”

Axel didn’t answer her. He pulled out a cell phone and started scrolling through it.

“What are you doing Axel, isn’t that Loki’s phone?”

“It is,” Axel nodded proudly. “I picked it up after he left Candy House. It has all the information Loki copied from his Dreamhunter’s Guide.”

“Finally, you did something smart,” Fable said. “Found anything?”

“Actually, yes,” Axel said, trying to avoid Fable’s stare.

“What is it?”

“I found a page where this purple gate is mentioned encircling the Dream Temple,” Axel said.

“And?” Fable got impatient.

“It only happens when the Dreamhunter’s Fleece is in someone else’s possession,” he said, reading from the phone.

“We already know Carmilla has Loki’s Fleece,” Fable puffed. “Tell me something I don’t know, Axel. Is it safe to pass trough it?”

“Not at all,” Axel said. “It says here that passing through it into the Dream Temple could lead to insanity.”

“What? Why?”

“Because this purple light means this dream is Locked,” Axel read.

“What does that mean?”

“Loki didn’t write much about it, but wait,” Axel scrolled the pages. “It says here that a Locked Dream is a…” he raised his eyes to Fable, looking worried.

“Axel?” Fable titled her head.

“It means this is a never-ending dream,” Axel pronounced slowly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means it’s not controlled by the timing of the Hourglass Waker, nor can the Dreamer shift between time and place like Shew used to do in her previous dreams,” Axel said.

“That’s crazy,” Fable said. “And what is this purple thing?”

“It’s the protector, or Locker, of this dream. That should be obvious, Fable.”

“Yeah?” Fable had her hands on her waist again. “But there must be a way to wake up from any dream, even if it’s never ending. Magic always solves problems like these. Does it say anything about that?”

Axel raised his head from the phone and shrugged, “It doesn’t,” he looked away from her, not wanting to tell her what he’d just read. The only way out of this dream was insane, and it was going to upset Fable so he decided not to tell her now.

“Are you keeping something from me, Axel?” Fable demanded.

Knowing that Fable’s next move was to snatch Loki’s phone from his hand, Axel deleted the part he didn’t want her to read.

“What did you do, Axel,” she pouted, snatching the phone.

“Nothing,” he shook his head and went on munching on a frog.

“Are you sure, Axel?” she asked politely, staring at the purple light and wondering if she was insane enough to pass through it.

Axel watched it closely. He knew his sister was crazy enough to walk through the light. And if she had read what he just read, she’d have had even more reasons to walk through. It was his job to protect her, and he wouldn’t let her know the only way this dream could possibly end. Even as much as he admired Loki and feared Shew, what mattered most was Fable.

“Are you sure we should trust whoever wrote this Dreamhunter’s Guide?” Fable said, scrolling through the pages, ”I mean everything here seems incomplete. I’m sure every kind of magic has a solution, but I just couldn’t find any here.”

“Why wouldn’t we trust the writer?” Axel said. “It’s the same guy who wrote every other article in it, signed as V.H.”