Wolves and Witches

by Amanda C. Davis

  At first it was enough that the story was about him and that it ended happily. He enjoyed the attention, as any child would. He would demand to hear the story, and when his mother reached the end of the guessing game the prince would yell out “Rumpelstiltskin!” with her. I heard them in my forest home and smiled.

  Because soon, he began to wonder.

  “Why, Mama?” he asked. “Why did the strange little man want me?”

  And the queen had no answer.

  The older he grew, the more it ate at him. Why had I asked for him? I could have had treasure, powers, half the kingdom, had I desired it. Why had I wanted the baby?

  The princeling was a handsome enough child, but his curiosity kept him inside, scouring ancient and dark tomes, when he should have been learning swordplay and horsemanship. The riddle of his importance drove him to long conferences with grizzled soothsayers and dreary mystics and old witches who reeked of the potions they brewed.

  I believe he would have been a good king, had not the mystery ground at him until he was as gnarled in mind and body as the ancients he communed with daily.

  He was passed over when his father chose an heir, but by then he didn’t care, not the curious young prince. Twenty years had gone by and he had no more answers than when he was a bright-eyed babe. So he put his mind to a new pursuit—finding me.

  He rode away one fogging gray morning and his mother wept, for she knew she would never see him again. I think she finally realized the truth.

  I had taken her child, after all.

  He found me. I let him. He stood in my little cottage, as twisted and ugly as I, dripping swamp water on my floor, and he asked his question.

  “Why?”

  “Consider this your first lesson,” I said. “Any common thug can take what they want. The pleasure is in getting the prey to come to you.”

  His eyes gleamed as he saw in my words the promise of power, of knowledge, of the joy of the chase, and I had him. He was mine.

  Any cut-rate sorcerer can make beauty from dross. The real magic stood before me: a prince, become a monster. Gold, spun down to straw.

  The Peril of Stories

  Amanda C. Davis

  Hush, my petal. Hush, my gem. I’ll tell you a bedtime story. Listen.

  Once upon a time there were two people, and they were married to one another, and they had a little daughter. And all of them were terrible thieves.

  One day the thief family saw a golden mansion deep in an enchanted wood, and they decided to rob it. But the mansion was owned by a beautiful wise woman, and she caught them. They begged to be set free. The beautiful wise woman was going to punish them, but then she saw that they had a daughter with them, no older than a baby. So she said:

  “I will set you free if you give me your daughter to raise. She will be rich and well-taught, and want for nothing. I would give up a little justice to save this girl from the immoral lives her parents lead.”

  The thieves agreed without a second thought. They ran off and left their daughter with the beautiful wise woman, who fed the little girl, and gave her a dress of blue silk, and taught her letters, and made her toys, and built her a lavish bedroom in the mansion’s highest tower. And the two of them lived happily ever after.

  Of course it’s true, my darling.

  Sleep tight.

  * * *

  Hush, my jewel. I can’t tell any more of that story. It’s ended.

  A man?

  Precious, why would you want a story about a man? The girl and woman are happy. A man would ruin the story. We don’t want—

  Very well.

  Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a lovely tower with her beautiful and wise mother. She had all she could want of food and finery and education and conversation. But she had a restless streak, inherited from the criminal parents who abandoned her. She began to ignore her books and her mother to stare out the tower window.

  One day she saw a man below the tower. From that distance he seemed handsome. She called to him. He called back. Recklessly, she took her bedsheets and tied them together to make a long, long rope that reached to the ground. The man climbed up to meet her.

  But oh, he was not the way she expected! He used her in all the ways men use a woman. He hurt her. And then he dared to kiss her cheek, and climbed down the sheets and left her.

  The girl wept on her pillow for a day and a night before she admitted to her beautiful and wise mother what she had done. Her mother comforted her, and together they devised a plan.

  The next day the girl saw the man again, and again she called to him. She tossed out the tied bedsheets so he could climb up. But oh! What a surprise he had! Just as he reached the tower, the beautiful and wise mother, who had been holding the other end of the sheets, let go! The man fell far, far down to the forest floor.

  No, he didn’t die! That would be too little punishment for such a wicked man. He fell into a briar patch where the thorns scratched out his eyes. He crawled away hurt and blind, weeping blood just as the girl in the tower had wept tears.

  The girl thanked her mother with love in her eyes, and always knew she could trust her to take care of her. And they lived happily ever after.

  Goodnight, petal.

  * * *

  Hush, my angel. Of course I’ll tell you the story again. Should we punish the man more tonight? We could break his bones when he falls.

  No, darling, he was evil.

  She loved him?

  No, the girl would never love him. Could never love him. She would never miss him or weep for his wounds. Don’t you see? He only came to hurt her. And she—

  All right, I’ll tell that story. What if she did love him? The beautiful and wise woman would be very badly betrayed. She would take away all the nice things she’d given the girl over the years, that’s what she would do. Yes, that’s what happened. The girl wouldn’t stop crying over her blind trespasser, so the woman took all her things and put her out into the forest alone, for being so silly and ungrateful.

  And after seven days cold and hungry in the wood, the girl realized what a wonderful life she had lost. So she went to the door of the mansion and begged the beautiful and wise woman to let her back in, and be her mother again, and of course the wise woman had mercy and welcomed her back, with great joy.

  And they lived happily—

  No, she comes back to her mother! She doesn’t find the man. He’s long gone. She comes back and…

  She heals him with her tears? That’s ridiculous! And he’s a prince? No prince would ever… They have twins together? Twins! And they go away together, and live in a castle far away from the wise woman!

  No, that wouldn’t happen!

  No, that can’t happen!

  Hush, my petal. Forgive me. I’m sorry I shouted. There, there. Come here, my gem, my delight. Join me at the tower window. Look out over the wood. How lovely the view, with just the two of us at the top of the tower. How high we are. How very high. What a long way down. There are thorns down there, you know. But you’ll find out soon enough. If you are very lucky, my dear, my darling, my traitorous daughter, you may even find a prince. Close your eyes, precious rebel. Sleep tight.

  The Witch of the Wolfwoods

  Amanda C. Davis

  They sent a girl, a pretty pup.

  I wonder if they dared to tell her,

  While they filled her basket up,

  Who is Granny, what befell her?

  Does she know it took full thirty

  Men to chain my wolfish wrath?

  Ten to hunt me, ten to hurt me,

  Ten to drag me down the path?

  Cowards! As they fear to kill me

  So they fear to let me die.

  Now they send me bread to fill me.

  I’d rather starve. But I’m still sly.

  The chains have loosened from my feet.

  This time, they have sent me meat.

  Untruths About the Desirability of Wolves

  Megan Engelh
ardt

  People like to think there was something sexy

  about the wolf.

  There wasn’t.

  It was a wolf and I was nine

  and wouldn’t have known what to do with a sexy wolf

  anyway.

  The sexiest thing in the woods that day

  was Granny,

  who sometimes still goes dancing

  with the widower cobbler from the village,

  now that those elves do all the work.

  Even if he was a smoldering pillar of manhood

  (or wolfhood)

  how would that have helped?

  It’s not like he seduced us into his stomach.

  Not like he batted his eyes

  and showed some chest

  and told us how beautiful we were

  as we crawled into his belly.

  Sexy wolf? Ridiculous.

  Here’s the truth:

  He was a wolf, big with big full eyes

  and big ears and big sharp teeth.

  His paws were big enough to knock you senseless

  with one blow,

  his appetite and his jaws big enough

  to swallow you whole.

  His stomach was big enough to fit two people.

  Being eaten was fast and it was hot and it was wet

  and it was over before I even knew what was happening.

  Being pulled out by the woodsman was like being born,

  like fireworks and waves on the beach

  and a gasp of air when you’ve been holding your breath.

  What’s sexy about that?

  And if I have grown up to become a wolf hunter,

  a leather- and wolf skin-wearing hellion,

  it seemed only natural,

  and what I do with my wolves

  is my business.

  Bones in the Branches

  Amanda C. Davis

  Once upon a time there was a soldier.

  Once upon a time there were twelve daughters of a king.

  Once upon a time, they met.

  That’s what makes a story.

  * * *

  The girls had a secret and the soldier had magic: a potent mix. The king, for his part, added rage. “The shoes! The shoes!” he shouted, and dumped a box with twenty-four split-soled slippers at the soldier’s feet. The girls pretended surprise. The soldier pretended to ponder. The king had nothing to pretend about.

  “Find out where my daughters go at night,” he snarled, “and you can marry any one of them you like.”

  A king with so many princesses might guiltlessly sacrifice one to save eleven. If word got out that the princesses left their room every night—without explanation—well, people would invent explanations of their own, and the whole dozen of them would end up marrying penniless soldiers who still shook from the memories of war. Twelve kingly dowries to twelve poor men. His entire household would go to their graves ashamed.

  The soldier studied the shoes, and studied the daughters, and said, “All right, I’ll stand watch outside their door tonight.”

  Which is exactly what he did not do.

  * * *

  Beware a man with an invisibility cloak.

  He can slip into your chambers and stand among your sisters, leering at their bare backs, sniffing deep as they pass, brushing their hands with his, letting his fingers glide along their loosened hair. He can follow you through your secret door, down your hidden path, to the enchanted worlds below. He will lean against the glistening trees that grow so quickly they creak and scrape his arms. He will marvel at the bones in their branches. He will tread on your dress. His eyes will burn upon you, as you twelve join hands in the icy gazebo so far underground that it is bright as day; he will slip unseen into your circle, so that he may watch you dance.

  * * *

  Beware your invisibility cloak.

  It makes you think you are invisible.

  * * *

  Once upon a time there were twelve princesses locked into their bedchamber every night until they taught themselves the magic to escape. Every night they danced together in a strange underrealm with a boy they hid in their closet, a boy from the kitchens or the docks or the gutters. Every day they lived as princesses and every night they danced like dervishes until their fine silk slippers wore through.

  Where the boys’ blood fell, it fed the glistening trees. A forest rose up and the bones dangled down.

  One day their father, the key-bearer, the lock-turner, brought them a man with magic—brought him right to their chamber door, a firm man in body, a broken man in mind, with magic not quite as strong as he thought. The man followed them down and down to their dancing-place, through the forest strewn with boys’ bones. He stood in their circle. He grinned wide, that broken soldier, and just like all the boys before him, he joined in.

  The soldier danced until his flesh wore away.

  His blood fed a copse of rowan that surged under his skeleton and lifted his invisible bones to touch a twinkling sky. And there he dangled, broken and magical, helplessly, happily, ever after.

  A Letter Concerning Shoes

  Megan Engelhardt

  My princess. My love.

  I could not give you freedom, and so I made you shoes.

  Do you remember when we first met? I suppose you do not. We were children, you and I, and you came to my master’s shoe shop in the center of the city in the shadow of the castle. I was ten. You were eight. It was your birthday. I know because you told me. Your father, the king, burst into the shop, and you followed behind, looking at everything with wide green eyes. While the men conducted their business, you came over to me and whispered, “It is my birthday. I am eight today.”

  You were very solemn about it, and I wanted to smile, but instead I bowed again, also solemn, and I gave you a piece of hard sugar that I had in my pocket, because it was my birthday, too, and the candy was a present from my sister. You were so delighted with the small gift that you held on to it tightly, even as you told me all about the other rich presents you had waiting at the castle. I loved you from that moment. I loved everything about you. I had never met anyone like you—you were so free, so unconcerned with the cares and worries that weighed down everyone else in my life. You cared about people, though. You told me about your sisters—there were only four of you then, and the twins were babies yet, but you gave me their names and asked if I would make shoes for them and smiled broadly when I said that I most likely would. You asked me what was wrong with my leg, and when I told you that it had been broken many years ago and healed badly, you told me you were sorry, as if it were somehow your fault. You were every inch a princess, and you won over the heart of the cobbler’s apprentice. I was so young—I did not know how things worked then—and I thought that we would be married one day. I told my master so and he beat me for daydreaming above my station, but that did not matter.

  Every year after that, on our birthday, I would give you something small: candy, when we were younger, or later, bits of ribbon and pretty cloth. For six years you came to the shop with your father, or with your governess, or with your sisters. For six years, once a year, you would find one small gift, tucked in the toes of your shoes. You found the present every time, and every time you would smile and thank me. You always liked to talk to me, while I measured your foot and showed you different fabrics and ribbons, and I loved the sound of your voice. We grew close. We almost became friends.

  It stopped the year you turned fourteen, the year I turned sixteen. It was the first year that you did not pick up your own birthday shoes, and the king’s messenger found the little package stuffed in the dainty tip. He looked at me with a disdainful, knowing stare, as if he saw this sort of thing all the time, and handed the package back. The next time you came into the shop with your sisters you were unusually quiet, and when it was time for you to leave you told me that the messenger had spoken to your father, and that your father had spoken to you, and that things had to be different now. We could no
t be friends any more, you said, and even though you looked sad when you said it I knew that you would not fight for my friendship, that you would just accept it as the way things had to be and move on. There were no more packages, no more presents, after that, and I knew there never would be again.

  We barely spoke, except on business, and I was no longer able to give you my tokens of love. I faded from your mind. Soon what we had been was nothing but a vague childhood memory, and I was now nothing more than the cobbler’s assistant. You turned your eyes to the young men of this and foreign courts, and giggled about them with your sisters as you sat in the shop. But I never forgot. You had once been and would always be my princess.

  My master died when I was twenty, and as he had no children of his own, he made me his heir and left me the shop. I was lucky—it was a well-established shop with the patronage of the royal family, and my master had been a good teacher. I was able to maintain the quality work that such prestige required. I took on my own apprentice, and we worked quickly and well together. I taught him as I had been taught, and soon he was able to do most of the every-day orders while I concentrated on providing for the royal court.

  I was the first to notice that things were not right. I had been making shoes for you and your sisters for years. I knew your needs: a new pair for your birthday and dancing slippers at the beginning of the ball season, along with whatever incidental pairs you might desire. But soon after I took over the shop, I found myself making dancing slippers by the dozens every two or three weeks. I knew you and your sisters were not greedy, or vain, or even excessively fond of dancing. I knew that something was wrong.

  Soon the whole city, and then the whole kingdom, knew, as well. The story was whispered in every corner: the twelve princesses went to bed with shoes that were whole, and when they emerged in the morning their slippers were worn straight through.

  Princes, rewards, rumors, magic—you know all of that, because it is your story. You know how the king sent out the declaration requesting assistance in the mysterious malady affecting his daughters. I wanted to answer it—I wanted to risk my life, like the princes that rode into the city in a steady stream and never came back out again. I loved you as much as they did. I loved you more, because I actually knew you. What did they know? Nothing. They knew only that you were a princess and that if they discovered your secret they would receive your hand in marriage and half of the kingdom as dowry.