Mary Mary Quite Contrary ( A Grimm Diaries Prequel #5 ) by Cameron Jace Read Free Book Online

“This
is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are
imaginary, except only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to
offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.”
Neil Gaiman
     
    Prologue
     
    Two hundred years ago, the Brothers
Grimm altered the true fairy tales, hiding that fact its characters were
immortals, secretly living among us.
    They placed a curse upon the
immortals, burying them in their own dreams, so they won’t ever wake up again.
The immortals’ bodies would appear as if in a coma in the real world while
their minds created a world of their own imagination in a realm called the
Dreamworld. The Brothers Grimm once mentioned this curse in the Snow White
story when she was sleeping in her glass coffin. In the original scripts, they
called it the Sleeping Death.
    However, the immortals broke the curse
by intertwining their dreams, and were able to wake up for a brief time every
one hundred years. The good ones wished to tell the truth about fairy tales.
The bad ones planned to bring wrath upon our world.
    Since immortals did not die,
descendants of the Brothers Grimm summoned the Dreamhunters, a breed of angels
that kills immortals in their dreams. The confrontations didn’t end very well.
    Everything that happened in that
period was documented in a Book of Sand, or what mortals call: the Grimm
Diaries. Different fairy tale characters wrote each diary, telling part of the
story.
    My name is Sandman Grimm, and my job
is to seal the final edition of the Grimm Diaries every one hundred years,
using a magic wand that writes on pages made of sand. After I seal the diaries,
they will dissolve into sand that I throw into children’s eyes every night to
create their dreams.
    What follows are mini diaries I call
the Grimm Prequels, scattered and buried pages that didn't make it to the main
volumes of the Grimm Diaries. There are seven of them, each told by a famous
character. You might want to read them before the first full-length diary
called Snow White Sorrow. It will give you an idea of what this world is like.
    The prequels don’t necessary hold the
truth. Some characters might want to manipulate the truth in their favor. And
since the prequels don’t give away much of the story, some matters could seem
confusing at times.
    It’s better to think of the prequels
like snap shots of a magical land you're about to visit soon. I like to think
of them as poisoned apples. Once you taste them, you will never see fairy tales
in the same light again.

Mary Mary Quite
Contrary
    as Dr Feelgood Aka
the Devil
     
    Dear Diary,
     
    People always ask me if I knew the
Queen of Sorrow. I always answer, ‘Do you know about a little girl named Mary?”
    Anyway, I’d like to start my diary
with my favorite line of all time:
    Once upon a time… in Hell , I was
pretty bored.
    Things around me weren’t burning hot
enough like they usually did. I liked my Hell cooked well. A medium-rare cooked
Hell wasn’t my thing. It might be the French’s. Hell was missing a certain
sparkle to it that day. The stars in the sky were shimmering a tad too bright
for my eyes, instead of dimming, dying, or turning into Meteors hitting the
earth and putting an end to the whole mess. I could even feel a cold breeze
swooshing through the coal and fire in Hell. I felt like I was on a freakin’
summer beach. What kind of Hell was that? We could use our reputation like
that.
    Then I found a horrible blooming
flower growing through the coals, unaffected by all the heat and cinder
surrounding it. What the hell was going on? I just couldn’t believe it.
It was such an awful day in Hell. Should I put the closed sign outside? ‘Sorry
we’re closed today. Maintenance. Come back later. A sin or two too late won’t
kill ya.”
    I imagined that the next thing I’d
hear would be birds humming around me, fluttering and singing like cartoons –
which would be the end of me. Didn’t I feed the coal