Ashes to Ashes and Cinder to Cinder (5 page)

“Sorry,” Loki bowed down to the man in the middle of the smoke. “I don’t speak Italian but I can speak if you like. Aww.” He kicks the man to sleep one more time and turns back to me. “We have to go back now, princess, or will die in this awfully ignorant dream.”

“No. We have to get her on that boat to Murano first.” I say and pull up Bianca into the carriage. It’s amazing how she trusts me and doesn’t think we’re going to burn her or kill her. “Don’t be afraid. We will help you.” I tell her in Italian.

“Italian much?” Loki wonders, helping her.

“I speak a lot of languages,” I say and hand him a whip. He retunes a suspicious look. “Here?” I can’t let him waist our time commenting silly comments. “Don’t start. You can ride this carriage to the boat, right?”

“Of course, my princess,” He smiles and grabs it. “My apologies for the misunderstanding, Bianca,” He bows his head with respect. I don’t know if he is mocking us. “Anything to get us out this damn dream.”

I close the door of the carriage, listening to Loki hitting some other guys then ride up the Carriage. As he whips the horses forward, he shouts, “Mama Mia!”

Even Bianca laughs.

Bianca thanks me, squeezing my hand tightly. “If you didn’t save me, I would have felt the rage eventually and lost control of my power, and that’s not good.”

“I know,” I nod, noticing that she is pregnant. That is exactly what I am here for. I think my mission will succeed. “We will send you to Murano. This where you will have the baby.”

“Thank you.” She keeps repeating and wanting to kiss my hand. I guess it’s an old Italian manner of appreciation. I try not to cry as I can’t tell her what’s going to happen to her after she brings the baby to the world.

We arrive at the boat and she gets on it while Loki keeps urging me that it’s about time to start the ritual to get out of the dream. He says that if we stay too long in the dream, we could stay lost here forever. I don’t tell him that I know about that since this is exactly what had happened to Cinderella.

“Ok,” I say. “Just one more thing,” I turn back to Bianca as she embarks the boat. “Have you chosen a name for your daughter?”

A broad and full smile arrests her features as she nods. “Cinder.” She says, raising her ash smeared five-finger hands in the air, then she points at the cinder covering her face in a proud way.

I nod cheeringly and let out a sigh. I did it. I have started what I came here for. It’s like putting the first brick in a million-brick wall, but it’s a start. My ancestors, the Brothers Grimm, should be proud.

“I have a slightly better name if I may suggest,” I offer, shouting through the sudden wind which I assume is a sign that the dream is about to end. “Why not name her Cinderella?”

“Cinderella?” Loki estranges me since he didn’t understand the rest of the Italian we spoke. “Now I have to shoot myself.” He mumbles.

“Shut up.” I say to him and turn back, watching her face knotting as she considers my suggestion.

Slowly, she raises her eyes to meet mine. Her face lights up. “Cinderella!” she nods three times and gets on the boat, but then she suddenly turns around and hands me one single and beautiful glass shoe. I understand she has made it herself. I smile, unable to confront her with the fact that she will die giving birth to Cinderella who will live a rough live being an orphan after that. But it had to be done. Many centuries ago, an Evil Queen cursed Cinderella in one of the immortal dream and buried her deep in it, so long that Cinderella has forgotten who she is. There was no way to bring her back from that eternal deep sleep. The only way was to find out in which dream Cinderella’s real mother was buried and help her avoid the imminent death so she eventually gives birth to a new Cinderella. A new Cinderella that will be a huge part in the fairy tale war, which repeats itself every one hundred years. I came here to make sure she is born and deliver her to Murano so the story takes the right, true, and untold start.

It’s not easy to explain to you what and how this all goes, but at least if you read my little entry in this diary, it’s a start for you to ride on a dangerous and great adventure.

I take the glass shoe willingly. It’s a present from a woman in a dream.

“Will I be able to take this with me to the real world?” I ask Loki.

“I don’t think so but we can try,” He says as he pulls me to the returning ritual. Doesn’t this glass slipper look like the seventeen slippers we found next to Bianca’s body in the real world?”

“Yes. It does.”

“Why seventeen slippers?”

“Because Cinderella is about to do something incredibly important for the world when she is seventeen. Every year was marked with a slipper. It’s been predicted in a prophecy. And don’t you ask me about the prophecy now.”

“Incredibly good, or incredibly bad?”

“That depends on her, and the choices she will make. My job was just to connect the dots. To make sure she gets born.”

Looking closely at the glass slipper, I see something shining bright inside, like two glittering mirror eyes staring back at me from the behind the thick glass. I flip the slipper upside down and two glass coins fall into the palm of my hand, reflecting sunshine into sharp rays of light onto my face.

“Hmm…” I sigh as I prevent my heart from racing.

“What’s that?” Loki asks. I guess my face exposed my worries. “Do the coins have any significant meaning?”

“It means that the Queen of Sorrow was here.” I answer, looking at the boat sailing away from us with Bianca and the unborn Cinderella on it. I wonder if the Queen is on that boat as well, and if I have been fooled. If the Queen is on that bought, does it mean that Cinderella won't be born again?

“The Queen of what?”

“I mean the Evil Queen. The Snow White Queen.” I say as I notice something else inside of the glass slipper: a dead butterfly. I wonder what this means.

Loki scratches his temples, looking like a decent young boy for a moment. “Snow White Queen? Cinderella? Seriously? So you’re some kind of a Godmother?” He wonders again as I laugh. He looks cute when he is serious. It’s sad that I will have to erase his memory once we go back to the real world. I can’t let him know that much. He doesn’t know who he is and what his role will be in saving the world.

Although I should be erasing his memory completely, I can’t bring myself to it. I will use my powers and erase some of his memories, the dream part in particular.

Although I am prohibited from doing this, I will not erase all of his memories of me. I will make him think that I am just a girl he met in his dreams, and that I don’t exist in real life. I couldn’t bring myself to make him forget about me forever. I wanted to stay a part of him, even if he will remember me as an imaginary girl he met in a dream.

END OF The Grimm Diaries Prequels book 2,

a prelude to the

The Grimm Diaries Series coming out soon

Please search
http://amazon.com
for other Grimm Diaries Prequels if you’re interested to know more about the Dreamworld and the series.

Also, book 3 in the Prequels:

will be available soon on amazon.com

List of the Grimm Diaries Prequels coming out June and July 2012:

1
Snow White Blood Red
( available free now )

narrated by Snow White Queen

2 Cinder to Cinder & Ashes to Ashes

narrated by Alice Grimm

3 If Butterflies Could Kill

narrated by anonymous

4 A Dream Within A Dream

narrated by Prince Charming

5 Laces, Combs, and Apples

narrated by Snow White

To know more about the first full length book of the Grimm Diaries book 1: Snow White Sorrow, coming out 2012,

please follow the link below:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13557166-snow-white-sorrow

Note from the author:

Your review is extremely appreciated, whatever your opinion of the book is. I am a young Indie writer and
I could learn even from the harshest reviews.

As for the series, the prequels are not intended to give away much of the main plot, but to let you know what to expect from the series.

Thank you for reading my humble book

You can contact me at

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/995289.Cameron_Jace

or

http://cameronjace.blogspot.com/

or

[email protected]