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. (14 page)

3)
           
The demon worm is a true historical misunderstanding in 1800’s. It was the only explanation of teeth, only no one flashed a cross at it, or so they say.

4)
           
In the 1800’s there was no such profession as dentist. The first dentists in the world were barbers. They were called
barber surgeon
s, and they first appeared in London. Sweeny Todd came to mind immediately.

5)
           
The Tooth Fairy herself, and Bluebeard’s sack full of teeth will explained later.

The Grimm Diaries Prequel #13

Ember in the Wind

As told by the Little Match Girl

By Cameron Jace

Edited by Melody Benton & Danielle Littig

The Grimm Diaries Prequel #13

Ember in the Wind

As told by the Little Match Girl

Dear Diary,

I died today, even though no one killed me, and even though everyone did—call me crazy but it’s the truth. I am dead. Do you want to know what the best part of being dead is? I don’t have to deal with the cold world or the hunger anymore.

Sometimes it doesn’t take a knife in your back to get you killed. Sometimes, people can kill you by being distant and cruel as if they’re only talking zombies who sold their souls long ago. All that’s left is their hollow bodies, like marionettes controlled by a puppeteer full of greed and selfishness.

I had faith in this world. I had dreams for this world – or any other world. It’s all gone now, and I can’t help but wonder if death is nothing but a long sleep where I can dream forever in a peaceful bed buried six feet under, but I was deprived from knowing even that.

You know what the worst part of death is? It’s that moment when you wake up and discover that it doesn’t end there. No, not at all. The show must go on.

Only moments after I died, I found myself in a cottage house in another world. Inside the cottage was a narrow room. I stood there next to a fireplace, my arms stretched to my sides, with ashes raining from the ceiling down on me.

If that was hell, then they were out of fire.

But it wasn’t hell. I was simply living in another world, given a second chance.

I touched my neck with my hand and discovered I was wearing a necklace made of matches—years later, I learned that it was enchanted and gave me a second life where I had no memory of whom I was before. A friend of mine was given a second life, too. Her necklace was made of seashells.

The room was too hot because of the fireplace next to me, and it was empty without a bed. Confusion had my feet cemented where I stood. It wasn’t easy waking up into my new life.

A girl with funny clothes came through the window into my room with a worried look on her face. I suspected she wasn’t from this new world, and I prayed with my ashen mouth that she’d be an angel.

“Are you alright?” she asked eagerly, cinders showering both of us in the house as I twitched.

“Where am I?” I said.

“It’s alright,” she smiled, the smile of an angel again.

This was so confusing. Where was I?

“Am I dead or alive?” I said.

The girl looked puzzled.

“That’s hard to answer,” she said. “You’re in a dream.”

“A dream? I don’t understand. Am I dead or in a dream?”

“I don’t know how to explain that now,” the girl said. “First, you have to tell me if you remember what happened before you died.”

It took me a moment to think about it. Did I remember? Did I want to remember?

Of course, I remembered. How could I forget about the cruelty of people when all I wished for was a little kindness to help me through the day? I was a little, helpless, fourteen year old girl with nothing but matches and a weak smile to offer the world.

I remembered.

My name was Ember—and I never had the pleasure to know my last name because I hadn’t met my parents. I lived in London, sometime in the 19
^th
century. From the moment I had opened my eyes, I had been a maid for a vicious family that included a mother and father, their two obnoxious daughters and their son who smiled when I did something wrong because it gave him an excuse to hit me.

I had been told repeatedly that this family had stolen my parent’s fortune and killed them, but such stories reminded me of fairy tales, hopeless rags into riches. I didn’t believe in those. I believed in reality.

I knew that I had been born unlucky, and I accepted my fate. All I wished for was that things would stay the same. I would serve the family, play my part, and enjoy the little things as long as they lasted. I wasn’t waiting for a prince to save me, riding on his unicorn and kissing me just in time and save the day. And I had no intentions of kissing a frog to meet a prince—if that was the only way to get one, then no!

The little things that I wanted to enjoy usually arrived on holidays, like on Christmas every year when I was allowed to sit at the same dining table with my adopted family and actually eat with them like a normal human being.

Of course, my moment of joy was usually interrupted with snickers and mockery on behalf of my adopted mother and sisters, commenting on how I was hopeless when it came to etiquette.

Frankly, I never understood that little annoying thing called etiquette. Why did I need forks and knives and spoons when I had my hands to eat with? Why did I need to wipe my mouth after every bite when I was going to clean it once I was finished eating? Why wasn’t I allowed to chew as loudly as I could with a mouthful? It made me feel good about the food when I did that. And don’t get me started about waiting for the butler to bring out a small piece of meat when there was already enough food on the table to gorge on.

Fancy dresses, preparation, and timing made eating feel like an impossible mission. I wanted to eat what I wanted, when I wanted, and be able to spit an olive’s seed back into my plate.

None of that was possible here. Still, I was glad for the small favors I experienced each holiday.

I also enjoyed it when we went out to the park on sunny days. It was true I wasn’t allowed to chase butterflies or play with ladybugs or even lay in the sun, but I was alright with all that; sitting on the bank, legs clamped together with both of my hands laid upon them, head lowered, and only and only speaking when spoken to.

It was just fine. I only cared for the sun, splaying its heat on my body. There was always something about the heat from the sun that made me feel good.

I had been warned many times by my adopted mother that the sun would burn my skin, but even if it did, I felt that dying in the arms of the sun would be a pleasure… to burn.

What was wrong with the sun burning my skin? I loved it, in a most unexplainable way. It was as if I believed I was born of fire, or that I was actually born on the sun, or even better, I could have been the sun itself. I couldn’t stop thinking about how this would’ve made me appreciated, being the sun, splaying my rays on the world and making everyone happy, and being very famous as well.

A slap from the back of my adopted mother hand woke me up from my daydreaming—she had ordered me to call her
mother
so she’d look sympathetic and kind in front of her friends, pretending to be treating me like a third daughter.

“Didn’t you listen to what I just said?” she grunted. “Go help your sisters and carry their bags for them.”

“But of course,” I nodded, hurrying toward them while holding the hem of my worn out dress, smeared with the ashes from the fireplace I slept next to. They didn’t allow me a room, although there were plenty in the house. I once overheard them saying that if I had a room it would be a statement that we were all equal in the house, and they wouldn’t allow that of a poor orphan girl like me. I wanted to tell them that I wouldn’t’ mind a small room under the stairs. That would’ve solved their dilemma. But if I had talked, I would have been punished, and my stepmother’s torture was unbearable.

Let me tell you a little about the torture she inflicted on me. Because I slept on the floor next to the fireplace, and because she knew I had a passion for fire and everything that burned, she would punish me by sticking matches between my toes and then light the matches. I wasn’t allowed to part my toes until the fire burned me and I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t only have to deal with the pain and humiliation, but I had to deal with the anxiety of waiting, watching the fire eat at the matchsticks until they reached my toes. With every flicker, I prayed the fire would die, or that the wind would be merciful and put it to sleep or that it would miraculously rain in my room.

But I was unlucky. I told you that. Nothing divine or coincidentally beautiful ever happened to me.

My adopted mother watched my toes burn while puffing smoke from her thin cigars. I wasn’t allowed to scream or the punishment would be repeated. If that happened I would have a hard time cleaning the house, unable to walk for a while.

In times like these I should have understood that the world was a bad place. Instead, I would gaze out of the window at night and dream of beautiful things, and listen to the birds sing. Many birds visited me through my window but left again once my adopted mother yelled my name.

Somehow, I had a feeling that I was special, that I was important, that I was going to do great things in the world, and that I was going to be as famous as the sun. Although I thought it wasn’t a good idea to dream such things, I couldn’t help it. If pain was an unavoidable destiny, then dreams were the only way to pass through it until it withered away.

On a Christmas night when I was allowed to have one of those good moments in my life, I sat with the family and we ate together. Like usual, I swallowed the humiliating comments like a bitter pill, and the night went on.

Call it stupidity or wishful thinking but for some reason I thought I’d suggest they give me a room of my own that night. I made sure to explain my theory, that I could have a much smaller room as long they gave me a bed to sleep on.

“How dare you even ask?” one of my sisters gnarled at me, and I wasn’t in the mood for playing obedient.

“I sleep by the fire in a room with no bed, with cinders and embers flying all around me and covering me with their ashes,” I found myself raising my pleading voice. “Please. I just want a nice bed.”

It turned out that asking for a nice bed in this world was a mistake because my sisters and brother begged my so-called mother and father to throw me out of the house. They claimed that they had had enough of my unbearable behavior after all the family had done for me and would not stand for such boldness from a nobody like me. I couldn’t help myself and yelled that it was me who couldn’t continue to live with a family who treated me so deplorably—I think it was the food maybe that had turned my mood, or was I under a spell of obedience before, and had just been relieved of it tonight?

The truth to be told, I didn’t want to be thrown out. I had nowhere to go, and it was unbearably cold outside that night, but it was inevitable. My adopted mother pushed me to the door while her daughters laughed at me, and my father and brother clicked celebrating glasses behind them. I managed to grab a coat, and then I glimpsed the box with the matches inside that were used to torture me. On a whim, with no apparent reason, I grabbed the box and took it with me.

Out in the cold, I walked alone into the crowded city with nowhere to go. It was ironic, yet sad, that there were so many people around me and I still felt so alone. So many people, so little love.

All of them were strangers, and they were taller than me, which made talking to them even harder and intimidating.