Authors: Cameron Jace
The door to Fable’s room burst open. She stepped out with another giant book that she could barely hold with both hands. Only this one was called:
A Midsummer’s Night Scream:
Shakespearian Enchantments to Punish the Unrighteous
Loki didn’t think Shakespeare had ever written a book like that, but arguing in a town where Snow White was a vampire was pointless.
A sudden breeze combed through the house and Fable’s pigtails loosened and flipped back in the wind. She stared angrily at Loki and Axel.
“I am sorry, Loki,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I can’t let you leave the house because I can’t let you kill Snow White.”
Loki was going to hit himself in the head with a sponge hammer for the bazillionth time. When was he ever going to meet cute girls who didn’t turn monstrous when mad?
Fable adjusted her glasses, and started reading from her book. It was a spell, in some language Loki had never heard and went like this:
Shaka ree maka nee
Teka teti teka zee
Door re moor no tamor
Tether thether ola orr
The breeze turned into a swirling wind, escalating to a mini storm inside the house, spiraling madly as all doors and windows shut on their own. Itsy and Bitsy ran to each window, sewing their cobwebs, creating their own crossbars over them, and trapping everyone inside the house. Bitsy didn’t forget to write
dork
for Axel on one of the windows.
“It’s a
tethering
spell to trap people within a house. Only this one makes sure that the house itself won’t let us out,” Axel said. “Why can’t you just say: Double, double, toil and trouble?” Axel yelled back to Fable as he ducked behind the couch, avoiding the cyclone. It hit Loki instead and he fell back. Every door, window, or shaft was closing, conjuring dimness into the Candy House.
Fable continued chanting, breathing heavily, her hair loose and flapping behind her. This side of her was really scary, but Loki knew everyone had a little bit of ‘scary’ in them.
When the mini-cyclone finally faded, Fable was panting. She let the thick book drop, and slumped upon the couch with a smile on her face. She was weakened from the power it took out of her to cast the spell.
“Now, I’m sure Snow white will be safe from you,” She blew out a long
phew
.
Loki stood up, wanting to leave the house and forget about this crazy family. When he reached for the doorknob, it was so hot he had to pull away. The books and vases on the shelves shook nervously. Stubbornly, Loki grabbed a kitchen stool and hit it against the window but the spider web bounced it back like a rubber band.
“It’s no use, Loki,” Axel said, still hiding behind the couch. “I was held prisoner for a week in this house when I denied her request for going out on her first date.”
Loki stood up again and sat on a chair opposite of Fable on the couch. She sort of smirked and giggled at the same time. The problem with Fable was that whatever she did, silly or not, deadly or not, she still looked innocent enough Loki couldn’t choke her or throw her out the window. The way she changed from pure heaven to pure hell was astounding and adorable, although painfully unbearable. No wonder she sympathized with Snow White.
Loki’s real problem was that he wasn’t used to caring about Minikins, let alone dealing with their quirks. He didn’t know that part of loving people, friends, and family was to deal with their dark times as much the times when everyone was shining bright. It just didn’t make sense to him.
“Ok, Fable,” Loki said, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “Let’s talk this over like two sixteen-year-old adults.”
“I am fifteen…and a half.”
“I know. I’m not even sixteen yet but you get the point,” Loki said. “Let’s just find a solution that will make everyone happy.”
“I’m happy the way I am,” she held her chin up. “As long as you’re trapped in here, Snow White is safe.”
“Believe me; I don’t have a clue how to kill her. I thought that my problem was that I couldn’t stake her, and then when I did by entering the castle in daylight, I found out that she controls her dreams. She is much stronger than any vampire I’ve seen. There is no way I can harm her now.”
“But you want to, right?” Fable leaned forward, posing and giving him that look.
“I have to,” Loki leaned back in his chair, almost embarrassed he said that. “Do you know how it feels not to remember who you are, how it feels being punished for something you have done but don’t remember? If I stay here, I don’t know how I am going to live. Sometimes, I feel I don’t know what’s wrong or right, what’s bad or good. I don’t know where I belong.”
“You’re stupid, Loki,” she said. “You keep asking all the wrong questions, and forgetting the most important: Why are you still alive when she could’ve just killed you? Because she needs you to save her,” Fable said. “She needs you, and all you keep thinking about is how to kill her.”
“She is right,” Axel said. “The vampire princess likes you.”
“Shut up, Axel,” Loki snapped. “I can’t help myself, let alone ‘save’ someone else.”
“I don’t know why you keep saying that,” Fable said. “It’s like you refuse to open your eyes to the world around you, hanging onto a silly dream of going back to whatever place you think you come from. You saved Axel from the Bullyvards, saved me from Big Bad—I saved you later, but you did try to save me. Why can’t you see that you can help other people and that you care about other people? Aren’t you supposed to be one of the greatest Dreamhunters in the world? Do you think great Dreamhunters don’t help people? Do you think your father didn’t help other people?”
“I was banned for
helping
, or loving, a girl who turned out to be a demon, Fable. I need to know what happened. I need to go back. I need to know.”
Suddenly, something crashed through the window behind Loki.
“Loki!” Fable shouted as she ducked down.
“Holy Moly!” Axel snapped as that something grabbed Loki by the back of his shirt. It was something with huge claws.
“It’s the Crow—“Axel pointed out in horror, “the one that flew out of the room in the castle.”
Loki had no time to look. The crow was already clawing at him from behind and dragging him across the sofa.
“Do something!” Loki yelled, unable to free himself.
“Like what?” Axel yelled.
“Don’t yell at
me
!” Loki screamed, feeling the pain in the back of his neck. “It you’re going to yell at someone, yell at the crow.”
“It’s huge,” Axel said. “I don’t want it to get mad.”
“It’s already pissed off,” Loki said.
“Do something, Axel!” Fable screamed.
“Why don’t
you
do something, Ms. Good witch,” Axel bounded back at Fable. “Where is your magic recipe book? Or did you only learn how to trap us inside but neglect learning the spell that prevents anything nasty from getting inside?” Axel said, wrapping his arms around Loki’s legs, trying to pull him back.
“Blah, Blah, Blah,” Fable said with her hands on her waist.
Loki kicked his feet in the air as the crow dragged him over the couch. They had seconds to do something before it kidnapped him.
Axel pulled one of Loki’s shoes off and somersaulted back onto the couch. Fable picked up a baseball bat, darted behind Loki and started hitting the enormous crow. The creature only lost its sense of direction and flapped a couple of strides away deeper into the house. It circled like a black fan near the ceiling, not giving up on Loki who circled like a merry go round horse at an amusement park.
Afraid he’d be taken, Loki wrapped both legs around Axel’s neck to add more weight to the crow. The bird struggled with the new weight while Axel’s eyes almost popped out, unable to breathe. He tried pulling Loki’s feet apart to save his own life. Loki didn’t let him. Axel was his only hope. If he just stayed strong, they could get through this.
“Fire!” an idea appeared like a light bulb hovering over Loki’s head. “Can you create fire, Fable?”
“I don’t know a spell to make fire,” she shouted, swinging away.
Fable hit the crow harder and it snapped, angrier now, dragging Loki across the living room looking for another way out. Loki was still dragging blue-faced Axel along.
“Shouldn’t your spell prevent it from dragging me outside?” Loki yelled from the ceiling.
“That’s it, it can’t get out,” Fable explained breathlessly. “If you look behind you, the window it crashed through has sealed itself again with the spider webs. That’s why it can’t get out. That’s why it’s so angry and mad. And that’s the problem. We have to kill it before it kills us.”
The crow was lost in the room, moving haphazardly away from the window. The house was mad as well, turning into a horror house again. The spell began to work again as the crow tried to escape from the spider-web-covered windows. Whenever it tried, it bounced back, and so did Loki and Axel. The house was playing Ping-Pong with them, and it didn’t look like Fable knew how to reverse the spell.
Small spiders began emerging from the spider webs, crawling on the walls. The house was turning into a horror zoo.
The crow knocked Fable to the floor and she dropped the bat. Her head smacked the table where Loki’s Zippo lay. She looked at them and shrieked.
“Fire!” she yelled, as if it was her idea, and Loki hadn’t been screaming it for a while. She lit up several cigarettes, coughed and cursed smokers, stood up, and began poking the crow with the cigarettes, punishing it with small but effective cigarette burns. So cruel.
The crow let out a crazy high-pitched squawk from the pain.
“I’m hurting it, but it still won’t let go of you,” Fable said.
“I know that,” Loki screamed. This time, he decided to let go of Axel before he fainted between his legs. He was too young to die in such an embarrassing way.
Then, a miracle happened. The crow let go of Loki who crashed down on the floor, listening to the bird squawking louder.
Loki whirled back and saw the crow heading to the window it came from although it knew it couldn’t pass through.
Next to Loki, Fable was screaming too; a long uninterrupted piercing note that hurt his ears and should have broken glass, had Fable’s spell not been protected by it.
Cute girls screaming. Awful. Awful. Awful.
She held her trembling hands to her sides, showing her tiny veins, unable to stop as if she had seen a ghost. Before Loki turned to see what she was screaming at, he saw Axel finally picking himself up. But when he looked in the same direction Fable was looking in, he bent like a dying plant and fainted respectfully and silently on the couch.
The crow was so scared from whatever Fable was looking at that it kept banging its head against the window until it broke, and escaped the madhouse on Breadcrumb Street. Then Fable fainted as well. Even the spiders were scared and crawled out the windows.
What was scaring everyone so much?
Loki turned to look at what caused the horror, feeling like the last man on earth to survive the apocalypse.
But Fable had seen a ghost. A scary ghost with its head cocked to the side, checking Loki out. It floated two inches above the floor.
The ghost smiled at him. It seemed that all ghosts and vampires were fond of Loki lately.
Loki smiled back reluctantly at it, saying, “Hi… mom?”
***
The fact that Loki’s mom saved them by scaring the crow away made Loki gorge on food like Axel. He needed to eat and re-energize himself to handle the ridiculous amount of scare trauma he had been through in the last few hours, plus the embarrassment his ghostly mother had caused him.
Having a ghost mom made it harder for Loki to believe he was the greatest Dreamhunter in the world. Even his reflection in the mirror wouldn’t believe him now.
All the people I like are scary, mom, Fable, and Snow White.
Did I say I like Snow White? Of course, not. I didn’t just say Snow White. I must’ve imagined saying that.
Well, Loki couldn’t deny there was something about Snow White that was terribly attractive, like a nagging girlfriend that he couldn’t live without; but, nah, he didn’t like her, no staking way. In fact, she got on his nerves, and he was vulnerable to her charms every time they met.
It escaped Loki how Axel, Fable, and him gathered around the table, eating dinner with Babushka who had cooked for them. He only remembered fainting next to Axel after he’d said ‘hi’ to his mom—
pile’m up mama.
When he woke up, his mom had changed into an almost human-looking form with a few scars and slashes here and there. It was one of the few times he’d seen her look like most mothers do, almost.
Now that she looked a little more human, it felt good to have a mom he could introduce to his friends without being embarrassed—or frightening them. Axel and Fable being weirdoes who lived in a weird house in an even weirder town helped a lot, too. They adored Babushka, and she double-adored them.
As Babushka stood cooking in the kitchen, Loki noticed that she had altered her ghostly appearance to looking as if she had a little chubby belly and lovely full cheeks. She was wearing an apron, and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, only missing some locks, some parts burned out, but that was much better than when she first arrived at the Candy House. Fable had given her a pair of oversized glasses, homey rabbit flip-flops, and let Bitsy help her with the cooking—he came walking with a bowl full of spoons and a fork on his back.
Loki liked looking at his relatively new mother. She actually had a caring motherly smile—altogether she was missing one of her front teeth—and had the most beautiful grey-blue eyes.
Way to go, mom. How did you learn to change like that? And why didn’t you ever cook for me?
No matter how she looked though, it still didn’t make her human. She was as dead as the chicken she cooked for them; ice cold and pulse free, but at least she was available, unlike his father whom he’d never met, which reminded him to ask her about something.
“How come you appear whenever you want to, mom?” Loki said, watching Axel devouring a chicken wing as if it was going to somehow teach him how to fly.