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. (9 page)

Remember when I told you that no one knew what had happened to the children?

I knew; and Robert Browning knew as well.

Here’s what he’s written in his poems years and years ago in the conclusion to his long poem about the Pied Piper:

In Transylvania there's a tribe,

Of alien people who ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress,

On which their neighbors lay such stress

The Piper didn’t kill the Children of Hamlin. Now that their hearts had been blackened with his lulling song, he needed them to create his own army of darkness. The Piper sent the children to Transylvania where an evil force, represented by the Magpie, resided.

The details of what happened to the children in Transylvania will take too many diaries to explain. All you need to know for now is that the Children of Hamlin, who once sympathized with the Piper, became the first vampires in history.

Whilst the Piper was away, they spread their own lore slowly over the years, not minding if people thought of them as a myth. Vampires were few, and they were hunted all over the world. They knew they needed centuries to spread and learn about their own nature.

Browning completed his references to the Children of Hamlin in Transylvania, referring to the founders, saying:

To their fathers and mothers having risen,

Out of some subterranean prison

If that was the case, I hear you say, then how did the Piper return?

The answer is Elizabeth Bathory.

In the seventeenth century, when Europe thronged with healthy people, spreading romanticism and art, Elizabeth Bathory caught the attention of the world.

Elizabeth killed young girls and bathed in their blood, and I believe I talked briefly about her when I told you about Bloody Mary. She was sentenced to death in a castle in Transylvania later. Only no one knew that Elizabeth was only a descendant of the Children of Hamlin, a vampire who was caught, hunted, and presumably killed.

Elizabeth was a stronger descendant of Hamlin. Instead of giving in to her death as a vampire in an abandoned tower, she dug deep to know of her ancestors until she came upon the Piper’s story.

When Elizabeth’s time of death came, Ladle’s grand grandmother was ordered to take her life. But Elizabeth found a way to resurrect the Piper to oppose death.

Because of the many souls the Piper had killed with his plagues, the dark forces had granted him the power of Death. The Piper became the Black Death, killing souls before their time, and saving darker souls when their time came.

In short, when Elizabeth summoned the Piper back with a forbidden spell, the dark forces turned him into an opposing power to Death.

The Piper was stronger than Ladle’s grand grandmother, and saved Elizabeth from Death, granting her immortality.

Then when centuries passed, the good forces in the world understood that the Black Death couldn’t be fought with the White Death, which were Ladle’s ancestors because they all wore the white cloak like her mother. Black Death had to be fought with Red Death, which was a good soul that had enough darkness inside to oppose the Piper.

Ladle was the first to become a Red Death. Until the incident in the forest, she thought her role was only to take the lives of those the Tree of Life demanded. The truth is that her role is much bigger than that. She has to save the lives that the Piper takes unrightfully, and kill the lives that Piper saves for his own evil reasons, also unrightfully.

Now that my story came to a conclusion, the kiddos in hell were already in tears. I had realized that they were going to be the worst generation of devils ever. I couldn’t blame them because Ladle’s unknown destiny did even leave an impression on me. It was hard not to sympathize with her. She had a war of her own waiting for her, and it wasn’t an easy one. She had to balance the evil inside her with the good. She had to try hard to use the good to complete her job, and the evil to give her power that would match the Piper’s, and his army’s, brutality.

“Will she win?” a kiddo asked me.

“I don’t think we’ll like it if she wins,” I said, pursing my lips.

“Why?” another kiddo said.

“Because we’ll lose if she wins,” I said. “Don’t you get it? We’re badass. We’re on the bad side, and when push comes to shove, we’ll take the Piper’s side.”

“I hate you,” the kiddo said. “Why do we have to be on the Piper’s side? We love Ladle.”

At this point, I was seriously considering quitting my job. Who wanted to work in such an environment where all your assistants were against you? I had to come up with a good answer, something to tempt the kiddos to stay on my side and not Ladle’s. The words came to my mouth finally and I liked how they tasted.

“I tell you what, kiddos,” I said, kneeling down to them. “Remember when I told you that Ladle is Red Death because White Death wasn’t strong enough to oppose the Piper?”

“Of course, we remember. Get to the point and answer the question. Why do we have to be against Ladle?”

“Actually, we don’t,” I put a forefinger on my lips. “Part of being Red Death is that she has great evil inside her that she has to fight to stay good—“

“And? Get to the point!”

“What if we could tempt Ladle to be on our side?” I clicked my fingers, and a golden tint shimmered in my red eyes. I just did it for the effect.

“Great idea!” they raised their hands cheerfully in the air. “We love Ladle.”

I’m have to say that it was the first time that I saw that evil smile on their faces. I’m proud of my kiddos.

End of Prequel no# 11

Author’s Note:

1)
I wanted to postpone this prequels so it would be longer and more detailed. The nursery rhymes and the poems that connect the Piper’s enigmatic persona to the Black Death are even more complicated. But it would have made the prequel too dense and hard to read.

2)
     
Also, I had Ladle’s mother previously tell her the story of the Piper, but it came out boring, and I thought of the Devil’s silly voice would make it more fun.

3)
     
I think it’s be cool if you read the Robert Browning timeless poem, and read more the Ring Around the Rosy nursery rhyme. All connections made are true.

4)
     
What exactly happened to the Children of Hamlin, Queen Bathory’s detailed journey, and how all of this fits with Snow White will be shown in the main series.

The Grimm Diaries Prequels 12

Tooth & Nail & Fairy Tale

As told by the Jack Madly

By Cameron Jace

Edited by Melody Benton

The Grimm Diaries Prequels 12

Tooth & Nail & Fairy Tale

As told by the Jack Madly

Dear Diary,

I know it would seem plausible if I told you stories about me; my many adventures could fill thick volumes of books full of laughter, awesomeness, and a few heartbreaks on the side. What can I say, I am far from being boring. I could tell you about when I fought demons to get back my hat the goblins once stole from me; how I tricked the greatest giant troll in the kingdom; the exotic artifacts I stole, or the one thing I had always been looking forward to stealing but hadn’t yet.

But guess what? I am not in the mood.

Mood to Jack Madly is very important—allow me to address myself in third person; it sounds good to me. My mood is fuel to my spirit. Bad mood is like bad food, just a filler with no happiness—at the end of which you end up spending the day in the bathroom to rid your body of something that wasn’t good in the first place.

I don’t even steal if I am not in a good mood. It just doesn’t float my boat. Stealing is an art, and it’s fun, especially when you are stealing from the vicious kings and queens—which also reminds me that I should tell you how I became an honorable thief later. Thievery is like magic; use the wrong spell and it turns you into a frog. Believe me, no one will want to kiss you then, because, guess what? Girls don’t like to kiss frogs.

So am I in the mood for writing a diary?

Well, yes. You caught me on a good day.

Today I stole a sack from Bluebeard’s castle, and when I came back to my beanstalk and emptied it, I was surprised to find it was full of teeth.

Teeth for God’s sake? Children’s teeth?

I had always known that Bluebeard was one of the scariest, rich men in Sorrow. And what is really intriguing is that he has an enchanted room with a dark secret that I haven’t been able to enter. Now, this is going to sound silly, given my amazing breaking and entering skills, but I had even been so desperate to get into this room that I had tried saying, ‘Open Sesame’ to it.

Here is my quandary…why would a rich man like Bluebeard have a sack full of children’s teeth? They were baby teeth, and some were still stained with dried blood.

So I sat on one of my favorite turtles, eating a pumpkin, watching the world below from a cloud and thinking about teeth. How would I benefit from teeth? I can’t sell them and I can’t even cook them; and it would be really scary to tell the children why I am saving a sack full of children’s teeth. For all I know, most of them still have their baby teeth—I still have one, too; I guess it’s because although I am a teen, I still have a child’s spirit.

The whole matter of teeth was what led me to write today’s diary, because it reminded me of a scary incident that happened to me when I was twelve years old. It was a memory that had a lot of
teeth
to it.

Here we go…

I remember it was a snowy afternoon, just minutes before sunset. I was running away from the goblins like usual. I was still new at stealing from them, and the Goblin Fruit drove me so wild that I started eating it while being chased—for any of you kids out there, it’s not a good idea to eat while you run. Just because Jack Madly is doing it, doesn’t give you the excuse to try it out. In fact, you shouldn’t do anything I do, because I am a thief.

So having finished the delicious fruit, I didn’t want to run anymore. The fruit was heavy in my stomach and I wanted to sleep and snore under a tree like a stuffed, lazy bear, enjoying the symphonic sounds my stomach made after the meal.

But it was hard to escape the goblins, and I found myself near the Kingdom of Sorrow’s school, so I thought I’d hide inside for a while until the goblins called it a night. The snow was thick anyways, and I would have a hard time digging to seed the earth with my beans to get back to my beanstalk in the clouds.

The school as a hideout was a great idea, yet deviously ironic, because I never went to school. I could hardly read. Grandma Madly had taught me reading and writing, but I wasn’t really paying attention because I liked pictures more than words.

Although I wanted to enter the school from its front door, out of respect since I rarely entered places through a door, fate had decided otherwise. The snow had been falling heavily and the door was impossible to open from outside. Usually no one was at school this late, but I still wondered if someone had stayed overnight due to the horrible weather. Long story short, it seemed I was destined to sneak into the place even when I intended to enter from the front door.

I circled the school until I found a semi-open window instead of breaking one open. It struck me as funny how those who didn’t go to school like me had more respect for it than those who attended it—I had even said a little prayer as I entered. I heard many schools were haunted after hours.

Inside, I heard a commotion and children talking in a nearby room so I hid behind the door, listening and observing. There were kids, ten to twelve years old like me, arguing. From what I heard, I learned that they were in some kind of after school detention. They had done something horrible and had to spend the night in the school, which was dimly lit and looked pretty much like a haunted house as the sun sank behind the snow outside.

The first one I saw was a boy, a little chubby and funny looking. He was wearing a pied outfit that made him look like a human Zebra, and his mouth was stuffed with food, probably candy. He had dimwit written all over his existence, but he looked kind hearted—I always had a thing for first impressions, and I was rarely wrong about it.

I recognized the boy, though. His name was Hansel, and all he cared about was candy. He was lucky his body was capable of digesting those incredible amounts of sweets he ate, or he would have looked as stuffed as a goblin.

“Stop eating for God’s sake, Hansel,” a redhead girl with pigtails said to him. I knew she was his sister because I was about to steal their house one time; they have an evil stepmother, but when I saw them and liked them, I didn’t want to steal the house anymore. The girl’s name was Gretel, and her features were uncannily cute, even though she looked like a bookworm to me. She was the younger but always acted as if she were the older. I once heard that the siblings were destined to inherit a great fortune since their mom had died, only their cruel stepmother prevented them from it—their dad was a typical fairy tale father; fool, absent, and a total douche. “You’ll be entering the dentist’s office within minutes. Stop the munching,” Gretel protested to her brother.

“I will not go in there, no matter what,” Hansel’s words came out muffled.

“And how are you going to prevent that?” Gretel was holding a heavy book in her hands; and I pitied her for carrying it.

“None of us will enter this dentist’s office,” a third voice said. I had to move a little to see who it was. “Over my dead body.”

Oh. My. God. It was that girl called Wendy. She snatched the candy from Hansel’s mouth and smeared it all over his face. Gretel blushed with anger but seemed to fear Wendy.