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. (16 page)

My dreamy thoughts faded, though, when I tried to run my tongue over my lips, which were cold, dry, and about to crack like unquenched earth devoid of merciful rain.

“If I don’t die tonight, I might age a thousand years because of the cold,” I mumbled, not sure if my words dared to leave my mouth; and if they did, I imagined them shattered to pieces as they tried to escape through my chattering teeth.

Was I hallucinating? Was I going mad? Was that what happened to poor girls before they died?

Squinting, I glimpsed the light of the city at the end of the narrow alley I had crawled to, thinking that narrower spaces were warmer and cozier, or that the fire burning inside one of the houses would reach for me through the walls. I was wrong. The walls were still cold like the insides of morgues and hollow unloved hearts. The narrower streets were only claustrophobic, squeezing all chances of hope from my soul.

Even that dim, yellow light of the main street hurt my eyes, because I knew now that not everything that glittered brought peace to the heart. This light belonged to the city that hadn’t been good to me; a city that was so busy living that it didn’t even notice a little, helpless, and poor girl who was about to die.

The thoughts that roamed my head helped the cold to take advantage of me. I wasn’t only freezing, but numbness possessed my flesh.

Pulling the feather coat tighter, I heard a cat moan somewhere. I could barely move my head, and my neck made sounds like cracking glass when I turned it. Still, I wanted to find the cat.

Leave the damn cat!
My mind screamed at me.
You keep helping others when no one helps you.

For some reason, I didn’t listen to that inner voice. My eyelids were so heavy that I couldn’t rely on my eyes to look for the cat, so I stretched out a numb hand from under the feather coat, trying to find the meowing cat.

Padding my palms on the ground, I found out that some fingers still had feeling, and I bumped against the cat’s head, protruding out of the thick snow. I tried to pull it out but either I was too weak or it was too heavy. The incident reminded me that cats preferred to go to some private place when their time to die arrived, so they could go alone and in peace. They were too proud to show their weakness to strangers. It didn’t matter that they were dying, but it mattered that they did it with respect.

Suddenly, I let out a muffled shriek because I realized that I might have been just like the cat, too proud to die in front of those who were cruel to me in the city, and preferring the alley to be my graveyard.

Use the damn matches!

Naively, I still hoped I could survive this night and sell the matches the next day. Orphan girls weren’t supposed to give up easily, but there was also the matter of only three remaining matches.

Light up the matches! Maybe they aren’t matches; maybe they’ve turned into magical wands. Would it hurt to hope?

Even if I managed to survive the night but couldn’t sell the matches tomorrow, what was the use of trying it now? How long would the fire live? A minute?

You will never know if you don’t try!

I gathered my strength, pulled out one match and scratched it against the wall, but nothing happened.

What? Even the matches I wanted to sell didn’t work? Why did they work when I was being tortured by my wicked adopted mother?

But the tip of the match suddenly flickered. It started with a small spark, like a virgin idea or an adolescent’s hope, flickering into existence and lighting up a small spot in the air, bravely facing the cold.

The light brightened, and I could feel the feeble heat it produced. Even the cat tilted its head toward the thin beam of light.

“This might work, partner,” I said to the cat and tucked it closer to me with my free hand, watching the magic of fire in the other. This was the fire that provided light to the world since ancient times when our ancestors rubbed two stones together and produced the element which all humans use to cook their food. It was the fire they used to warm their bodies.

Suddenly, the fire was magic to me. I didn’t know if I was imagining or if it was real when the aura around the shimmering fire expanded like a small sun in my hand. I enjoyed it tremendously because I saw myself inside it as if I were holding a heated crystal ball.

I saw myself in another place and another time, wearing a fine blue dress and precious glass shoes, dancing in my room next to a fireplace that shimmered with embers. My hair was curly-locks beautiful, blonde and clean like a princess’ would be.

Birds entered the room and fluttered around me, tweeting words I couldn’t understand but liked nonetheless. The sun shone into my room and when I peeked to look outside, I saw it smiling at me. Then it winked, promising me that everything would be alright. The trees bent and greeted me while the wind ran through my hair, playing with it.

“Do you see that?” I asked the cat. “Could that be me?”

A knocking came to the door in my vision, and the fire in my hand started to flicker away with each knock.

“No,” I shrieked, watching the light dim. “No, please stay alive,” I demanded the fire. “I’m just a little match girl, and I want to see more.”

The fire couldn’t hold on, though, especially when my dreadful sisters came through the door, taunting me, pulling my hair and smearing my face with cinder from the fireplace. Even the image in the crystal ball from the match was stained with their appearance.

Then the light died in my hands, and a warm tear squeezed itself out of my eye in spite of the overwhelming cold.

“No,” I threw the dead match away. “But wait. I’ve got another.”

I pulled the second match from the box, scratched it against the wall so fast that its light almost died as quickly as it came to life. I had to protect it with my other hand to help it stay alive; it did, and it showed me another scene in its small crystal sun.

This time I saw myself in an enormous castle, dancing elegantly with a prince. He was handsome, young, and he took care of me. The music was soft and slow. Only the two of us danced in the middle of a domed ballroom. Everyone was staring at us with smiling eyes.

With every move, I felt elevated from the ground, warm, safe, and enchanted as if I was dancing on water. The prince whispered in my ear, commenting that I was beautiful and that the glass shoes I wore only complimented my beauty. I smiled shyly and looked at the same glass shoes I’d seen before. I told him that my mother had made them for me.

The mentioning of my mother made me cry in the alley. I didn’t know if it was my tears or a sudden wind that killed this flame, but it died.

My mother? I have never met her. Did she make those shoes for me? I want that crystal fire ball back to see what happens next.

I pulled out the last match and looked at it, knowing that no hope would remain after it.

I scratched it against the wall.

This time I wasn’t in the castle with the prince anymore. Instead, I was standing in a dark forest, still wearing that fabulous dress.

There was a coach, the shape of a pumpkin, in front of me. The coach was pulled by two unicorns, and I couldn’t resist walking to them and patting them gently.

One of the unicorns was hornless—the spot where its horn had been cut off showed a red bruise. I patted it lightly so it didn’t feel pain, and it brushed its cheek against my palm as if it knew me and missed me.

I walked around the mysterious and delicious looking coach, wondering where it could take me.

If I ride the coach in this short-lived flame image, will it take me away from this cold alley?

Hesitating before the coach’s door, I heard the howling of the wolves nearby, so I got in.

The unicorns ran, pulling the coach. It seemed like a exciting ride. Moments later, the unicorns grew wings and carried me up into the sky. I peaked out of the window and saw we were heading for the moon.

Suddenly, I heard a scream far below.

I looked down, and saw a scared girl running through the forest. She had long black hair, had a complexion pale as snow, and wore a white dress. I tried to stare long enough to see whom she was running from, but spiraling smoke arose and dimmed my vision.

An overwhelming feeling urged me to help the girl. I demanded the flying unicorns to go back to her, but they didn’t listen. I climbed out and pulled them to a stop but they still wouldn’t obey me. I glimpsed the eyes of one of them sneaking a look down to where the girl was running, and it seemed scared of the girl.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I screamed at the unicorns. “She needs help!” I said and demanded they return to the ground.

This time, they obeyed me.

Landing back in the forest, I got off the carriage and looked for the girl—I had this genuine feeling that I knew her, but it was weird; because I felt as if we hadn’t met yet.

The girl was nowhere to be found, and I circled the coach again.

As I sat in the alley, out in the cold, I watched myself lost in the forest and reminded myself that this was my last match and that I would never be able to visit this world again.

In the crystal fire, I saw myself kneel to pick up something from the ground. It was a jar. My inner voice told me that it belonged to the girl with the black hair, the one that I had tried to save.

Stop trying to save people, even if it is an imaginary world. If you want to save someone, save yourself!

I watched myself kneeling down and picking up the jar. It was hot and foggy. I couldn’t see inside, and the lid was locked. I wasn’t going to be able to pull it open with my hands. I wiped the sticking fog from the glass and saw something inside that made my heart shatter.

Suddenly, the wolves cried out nearby. When I turned my head, they were all staring at me with their red eyes and sharpened fangs. There were six of them, approaching slowly.

Was this a trap? Did the girl fool me into coming down from my ride in the sky to get eaten by the wolves that were chasing her?

Before the flame died, and while the jar was still in my hand, I found myself calling out the girl’s name and saying, “Snow White! What have you done?”

When the light from the fire abandoned the alley and I was left back in the dark, I looked next to me and found the cat had died. It was time for me to accept my death in this cold and harsh world. Whatever vision I had seen in the last flicker, I could not interpret or decipher. I didn’t know if it was the future, the past, or just a dream. And I didn’t know if my mind had been playing tricks on me or if it had really happened.

It didn’t matter.

I lowered my head and allowed myself to fade away. Maybe that was best for me, to go to some place where I wouldn’t suffer cold or hunger anymore.

As the world faded, I saw a woman in a white hood approaching me. My eyelids were very heavy so I wasn’t sure if that was a scythe she was holding, but I saw her kneel before me and take me in her arms.

“It’s alright, Ember,” she rubbed my hair. “Your mother sent me to you.”

I didn’t know why my mother, whom I hadn’t met, would send a woman who seemed to be death itself to me, but I was too dizzy to reply. Goodbye world.

“Normally, I would take your life with my scythe now,” the woman said. “But you’ve been a brave girl, and a scythe isn’t the right way to honor you,” she said. I saw her hold my numb hands with her warm ones. She pulled out a necklace made of all the matches I had burned in the city and put it on me. ”Don’t be afraid to let go,” she whispered as if lulling me to sleep. “You will only die in this world, but you will not die absolutely. You will wake up somewhere else. You know why? Because you’ve been honored with the gift of immortality because of the people you helped and the cat you tried to save when the world treated you badly. You’ll rise again from the ashes, in another time and another place because you’re the Phoenix, Ember. You’re the Phoenix, and you have a destiny to fulfill.”