Free 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. by Cameron Jace

see them.
    They sniffed after crying for him, but again, he didn’t see them.
    They mouthed his tune—because they were afraid they’d get punished if they sang it aloud—but again, he didn’t hear them, walking away alone and defeated.
    If only the Piper had known that the children cared for him, the world would have been spared the evil he brought onto it later. If only.
    The Piper didn’t see them because like the rats, he’d already been plagued and blackened with injustice, a word that was easy to say, too hard to deal with its consequences. The demon of revenge had already taken hold of his heart. The cancer of injustice had already eaten at his cheerful soul, leaving a skeleton of a carcass behind, one that could never feel compassion for humans—or anything else—again.
    As the Piper walked away he was followed by a mysterious Magpie—which no one knew what it really was until today day.
    The town of Hamlin forgot about the Piper, returning to their conservative ways of life and telling stories from time to time. Although they knew the Piper’s melodies had been planted in their children’s hearts, they preferred not to talk about it. When a traveler asked about how they got rid of the rats, they answered, saying, “What rats?”
    The Piper’s story had been buried, and they claimed that the town had never been infested in the first place.
    Days went by. The sun shone and sank again. Sometimes, it rained. Plants grew. Babies were born. People died. Life had just become monotonous enough to forget about that day, the way so many incidents in history have been forgotten by the sinful act of denial.
    But the demon of the past came back, haunting Hamlin on the 26 of July in 1284. The Piper reappeared on a day that changed the history of the world .
    The day was warm and the sun was shining bright. Hamlin was celebrating summer. Everyone was outdoors, talking, cheering, having already forgotten that it was a miracle that they were still alive.
    The Piper came back wearing black. It was as if what was once a colorful rainbow in the sky had been eclipsed to eternal darkness. His body was covered from head to toe with his dark cloak, his head buried underneath the hood. It was said that his fingers were that of a skeleton when he played his pipe, and the children had recognized the tune he played as being a bit different. Still, it was a tune they couldn’t resist, like candy on the porch of a witch’s house.
    Looking at him made one miss a beat in his heart, and made the eyelids twitch. The Piper had come back as dark as it got, capable of lulling and leading people down the path of Hell with a smile on their faces. His face didn’t show, though, behind the blackness underneath his hood. He walked slowly, confidently, detached, his cloak brushing against the ground, reminding the people of Hamlin of the rats that once covered it.
    As he played his tune, the Magpie fluttered on his shoulder. It added a certain contrast to the Piper’s image. For a man who once wore the colors of a rainbow, now dressed in black, the Magpie was the only thing about him that was pied. Magpies are a very smart species. In fact, they are one of the smartest birds in the world, yet predatory and vicious when hurt or betrayed. The bird definitely suited the Piper.
    In the beginning, the people of Hamlin stopped whatever they were doing with open mouths and bulging eyes. Then the founders started screaming because the tune he played poisoned their souls before their ears. This new tune had them bleed from their noses and cemented their feet to the ground. It was a tune called Dance Macabre, but it was the least of their horrors that day.
    They watched their children sleepwalk in front of their eyes toward the Piper, following him like the rats across the streets. They were tiptoeing, hands stretched forward like a starving man hypnotized by the smell of food. The Piper led the children like blind mice out of town, and no one knew