The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales

by Emily Brewes

  Doggo went about his routine, blissfully unaware of the world around him — which, I suppose, was also part of his routine. He scarfed his food, licking his chops when it was gone all too quickly. Then he gave his genitals and asshole a thorough licking, which he followed by taking a short walk away from the fire to relieve himself, presumably so he could enjoy cleaning himself again.

  Not for the first time, I felt a stab of jealousy. Doggo wasn’t bothered by most of life, save the moments when life denied him food on demand. He’d told me as much as he could recall of his past, which wasn’t much. He’d had siblings, with whom he’d run in a kind of pack. It was not clear to me if they’d lived above or below ground. Considering Doggo’s confusion when I tried to get a straight answer, I guessed it must have been down here. He didn’t seem to understand what I meant by “the surface.” Then he’d matter-of-factly described the terrible things that had befallen his packmates. One was killed by a pike to the head. Another drowned in a cesspit trying to reach a morsel of food.

  It wasn’t that he was unfeeling; he didn’t know any better. He had no expectations from life. Even when he’d gone hungry, seemingly the greatest betrayal that could ever be, it was just another thing that had happened. A lack of judgment, I guess. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it just was.

  As he settled in for a thorough ear scratching, I wondered if we might find Olivia. I had kind of planned on heading back to the farm once we got out. Not necessarily to stay. Maybe I felt obligated to make peace with the place.

  If it had been me who’d gone looking for Dad, that’s the first place I’d have checked. She could’ve gone that way, too. Even if she hadn’t stayed, maybe she’d left some clue as to which way she’d gone next. I didn’t dare hope. Still I felt a small flicker of something very much like hope tickle deep in my gut. I’d gone so long without any sort of family, and now it seemed to be finding me everywhere.

  First, Doggo. Then the Metzlers. Now this letter. Were I superstitious, I’d have suspected Fate was trying to prepare me for whatever it had in store.

  I leaned back to rest my head against the wall. One hand went to find the warm curl of Doggo, nose tucked under his tail. He wasn’t much of a watchdog, so I only let myself fall into a light doze in an open corridor like this. With my eyes closed, I started to tell another story.

  The Wishing Fish

  Once upon a time, there was a young fisherman. He was poor and lived on his own in a hut near a river. The river was wide and slow and brown. In the river, the young man often caught lazy salmon and fat catfish. He didn’t have much, but he always had enough to eat.

  One evening, walking down to the river, the young man passed the cooper’s cottage. The cooper was in his yard, splitting staves by fading daylight, and called to the fisherman,

  “Ho! Are you not married yet?”

  The lad blushed and tipped his cap. “Not yet, Uncle, but I shall be by and by.”

  His elder nodded sagely and went back to his work.

  All night, fishing by the river’s edge, the young fisherman recalled the cooper’s question and thought about his own answer.

  Every evening, I come by the river to fish. Each morning, I return home, passing through the town to sell my fish to the monger. Where and when should I come across a girl to marry? What a foolish thing I have promised!

  As morning began to dawn, the young man made one final cast. He closed his eyes and threw his line deep into the middle of the river. No sooner had the hook hit the water than it was taken. With a quick jerk of the rod, the hook was set, and the fisherman pulled in his line.

  Whatever had he caught? The beast fought and lashed, pulling like a cart horse against the line. It cut into the fisherman’s fingers so they bled, and still he pulled. Calmly, one hand over the other, the line and the fish were landed. He stepped up on shore to gaze upon his hearty catch.

  It wasn’t a salmon, with its fat and silver belly. It wasn’t a slick black-and-brown catfish, with its sage’s whiskers. This fish was small for all its fight, and a dull, drab grey green. Each fin was tipped with a golden gleam, and across its back was a pair of red streaks. The fish flopped on the wet sand, gasping. It looked so pathetic, and its markings so rare, the fisherman decided he would not sell it. He would keep it against finding another like it, then he could try to breed them. If they tasted well, he might never need to fish again — he could farm the fish and have the time to go a-courting.

  How splendid a thought!

  The fish went into the creel with the others, and off the lad trotted to the town fishmonger. To not arouse suspicion, he claimed the new fish as his supper.

  “I’ve not seen one like that before,” said the monger.

  “Neither me,” replied the lad. “All the better I take it for myself then, in case it tastes poorly.”

  To this the monger nodded and gave the lad his few coins.

  Off shot the lad to the cooper’s cottage. It being early yet, the cooper and his wife were not roused. He had to bang on their door quite loudly.

  “What do you want?” demanded the cooper.

  The fisherman thrust the coins into the cooper’s rough palm. “I have need of a barrel for to make my fortune.”

  The cooper raised an eyebrow but got a barrel, anyway. The fisherman thanked him and took off for his own abode. Once there, he swiftly pumped the barrel full of water at the well and put the strange fish inside it.

  One moment, then two, his breath bated, the lad watched the fish sink motionless into the water. When he’d all but given up, believing the creature had died from waiting in the creel, there was a splash and shimmer, and there was the fish looking up at him from just beneath the surface of the water. The fisherman’s grateful laughter was cut short when the fish began to speak.

  “You have caught me but spared my life. In return, I will now grant you three wishes.”

  He’d never heard a fish speak, let alone have one offer to grant him wishes. The fisherman sat on the ground, too stunned to speak, and was only roused by the grumble of his belly.

  To himself, he muttered, “Oh, I wish I had kept another fish for my supper!”

  From the barrel, there was a splash and a flick. A drop of water flew from the barrel’s top and landed in his lap, whereupon it became the finest, fattest salmon he’d ever seen. He was overjoyed until he realized he’d used up one of his wishes.

  Deep in the barrel, the fish intoned:

  Two wishes left

  and use them well.

  Remember the finest fish

  often still smell.

  The salmon was so fat and so fine that the fisherman took care in preparing it. With a well-whetted knife, he trimmed and carved and filleted. The meat he put over the fire to smoke, the skin he salted to cure, while the head and bones went into a pot to be boiled for soup. This last he drank thoughtfully as he considered his next two wishes.

  He continued to think as he moved the barrel under the eave of his back door. He thought as he washed himself and his clothing, preparing for bed, and as he hung his clothing over his windows to dry. And he went to bed, still thinking and unable to land on what to wish for next.

  The fish came to him in his dream, only it was in the guise of a beautiful woman with hair of golden flax and lips of scarlet. Her gown of green and grey shimmered in the light of ten thousand candles that adorned a ballroom of marble and glass.

  “If you wish it,” she whispered in his ear, “I will be your wife.”

  He was so overcome by her beauty and the grandeur of their surroundings that he leaned in to kiss her. At the last moment he opened his eyes and saw that she truly was a fish. Startled and disgusted, he ran away.

  On the floor of his hut, the fisherman woke up. A voice by the back door was singing:

  Though you would wish

  for someone to wed,

  if she were a fish

  you’d spurn her instead.

  The lad blushed and felt he was being mocked. �
�I wish that fish would be silent,” he hissed.

  It was late afternoon by the light, so the fisherman got a start on his day. He dressed in his clean clothes, dried by the breeze and warmed by the sun. He rolled away his bed and swept out his hut. Then he took a piece of newly smoked fish meat from where it hung over the firepit. He savoured the taste of fat on his tongue as he went out the back door to check on his magical fish.

  It swam round and round, just beneath the surface of the water. But surely this wasn’t his fish. Where were its red markings? Where was the flick of gold tipping its fins?

  “Fish! Fish! What has happened to you?”

  The fish swam and swam but said nothing.

  His first thought was that the fishmonger had come and stolen the fish, swapping it for another in the hope he wouldn’t notice. In an instant, the lad was off down the road to the town, where the fishmonger was cleaning out his stall.

  “Where is my fish?” demanded the lad.

  The monger shrugged, thinking he meant yesterday’s catch. “It’s all sold, my boy. Went quick as a wish, that lot.”

  What a poor choice of words! At hearing “wish,” the young man fell upon the monger with his fishing club and beat him to a standstill.

  “Now tell me what you’ve done with my magical fish, or I will deal you a killing blow.”

  “Had I a magical fish, do you think I’d still be here, cleaning out a reeking stall?” the monger managed through split and bleeding lips. “Begone, lest I call the constable and have you put in the stocks, you cheeky imp!”

  The lad made his apologies and was off, back down the road, this time to the cooper’s. Surely the man had wondered what the barrel was for and, finding the fine fish, had swapped it out for another.

  The cooper was again in his foreyard, splitting staves in the failing light of day. On his approach, he nodded to the lad. “Ho, my young friend! Are you not married yet?”

  The fisherman leapt over the cooper’s front fence and shouted into his beard, “What have you done with my fish?”

  Thinking the boy meant the salmon he’d been smoking, which the cooper had smelled all through the day, he only laughed. “Why, if I had even a taste of that fish, I’d have given you my own daughter to wed! The smell alone has filled my dreams with nothing but fish.”

  Another fatal choice of words! Hearing the word “dream” sent the fisherman into a jealous rage. The cooper, being somewhat younger and fitter than the monger and armed besides, managed to stave off most of the blows. As he fought, he demanded, “What have I said to provoke such ire? Did I tease you too strongly about being unwed?”

  “My fish! My fish! My fish!” was the lad’s only reply.

  They fought until the fisherman collapsed with exhaustion. By this time, the sun was set. There was no light to see the road by, so the fisherman would not make it to the river to fish. The cooper’s wife came into the yard, holding up an oil lantern to see by. The pair of men, bruised and tired, looked at nothing but each other.

  “Come inside,” she insisted, “and eat a hot meal. Then we’ll make some sense of all this.”

  Over a bowl of stew and a crust of ash-baked bread, the fisherman told the cooper and his wife about the magical fish and everything that had befallen him since catching it. When he was finished, the generous couple nearly fell over laughing.

  “What is so funny? I’ve lost my magical fish and my last two wishes. Now I’ll never be wed!”

  “Last one wish, you mean,” chided the cooper’s wife. “Foolish boy! You wished for silence, and so you got it. For aught you know, you wished the magic right out of that selfsame fish.” She stood and gathered the plates. “I simply do not know how you survive without the wisdom of a woman,” she added, winking at her husband.

  After supper, the cooper walked the lad home with the aid of his oil lantern. At the door, the fisherman apologized to the cooper for his rudeness.

  “Make no apologies to me, only to that poor, fine fish who’s all but told you what your third wish should be. Just be sure to invite us to the wedding feast.”

  The lad lit a fire, then went to the back door and pulled the barrel inside. The fish still swam listlessly, round and round and round. Ever so gently, he lifted the creature from the water. He looked into its helpless, gasping face and said, “I wish for you to be my wife!”

  So saying, he put his mouth against the fish’s in a kind of kiss. The fish in his hands dissolved into nothing more than smoke, which joined the smoke from the fire and floated up through the roof of the hut. Feeling chagrined and foolish as ever, the fisherman sat by the fire and began to weep.

  No fish! No wishes! No wife!

  At the stroke of midnight, bells tolled from the abbey that overlooked the town from a tall hill. The young fisherman had cried himself to sleep beside the fire, which had burned itself to cold ashes.He was roused from this sound doze by a knock at his front door.

  He staggered to his feet. Every inch of him ached from his brawling with the monger and the cooper. His skin and clothes stank with sweat and smoke. Even so, he opened the door to greet whomever was visiting so late in the night.

  Standing on the road in the moonlight was the woman from his dreams. Her gossamer gown was now a practical linen frock and pinafore. Her shining hair was brushed and braided down her back. And her lips were less scarlet than they were the deep pink of glowing health. She smiled and held her arms wide, inviting his embrace.

  The fisherman ran to clasp his wife, lonesome no more. And together, they lived happily the rest of their days.

  WHEN I FINISHED, I fell asleep. I had a dream of being told a similar story by my father. Or maybe it was a sleeping memory. It was before Olivia was born, so perhaps he was more indulgent of me. There was no other child to compare me to, no hollering baby to demand attention.

  He had the book of fairy tales he read from sometimes, but just as often he made up the stories. There was one about a group of giants who tried to play baseball, only they didn’t understand the rules and ended up using bedsprings in place of bats. Another involved some elves making breakfast using a stone and a spinning wheel. The tales seemed all the more out of character for him. Maybe I was misremembering out of my own wish for a father more like myself. Maybe I’d seen it in a movie once. Surely this was not my own father of practical hands and practical heart.

  Yet there were so many details that shot up from that morass of memory. A teddy bear held against his forehead suddenly became part of the tale. Silly bits and pieces shoved into the lines of well-worn stories, eliciting an avalanche of giggles. Mum poking her head in the room to remind the pair of us that this was supposed to be bedtime, not getting-riled-up time. They were moments so happy that it was painful to recall. I felt a choking knot in my throat, which woke me up in a fit of coughing.

  Doggo shot awake, ears forward, his face half-slack with sleep.

  “What is it? Is it terrible? Should I do hiding?” He crawled into my lap and put his front paws on my solar plexus so he could stare directly into my face. “Or shall I save you?”

  Lifting him off my diaphragm so I could breathe again, I scratched him behind the ears, then helped rub some life back into his goblin mug.

  “It’s nothing, Doggo. Don’t worry about it.” Before he could ask, I added, somewhat hesitantly, “Here, let me get you a snack. Want some fish?”

  IN SICKNESS, UNTIL DEATH

  THE COUGH WAS GETTING WORSE. I could hardly draw breath without falling into a fit. My lungs felt like a pair of beat-up cardboard boxes: stiff, with crunched-up sides that were reluctant to move. It occurred to me that I was approaching the same age my mum was when she died. Maybe if I’d just given in, that would’ve classed it a family tradition.

  Whenever I coughed, Doggo would look up at me with concern. He wagged his tail and scrunched his eyebrows together, shifting his weight between his paws. He was no spring chicken, either, but he seemed in far better shape than me. I told myself, I’ve gotta h
ang on at least long enough to get him out of here. Back to the surface or, as I was starting to think of it, the land of the living.

  We stumbled on a slice of civilization, spilling through an access panel from a maintenance room into something that looked like a kind of subterranean shopping centre. The storefronts remained as market stalls but families crammed into ad hoc housing behind the counters.

  I panicked, looking around like a maniac to see if anyone had noticed us — if they’d noticed Doggo. In the clear for the moment, I stashed him behind the access panel. We had our usual back and forth about “later” and “waiting,” then I closed the panel door most of the way and headed into the open.

  One stall was frying reconstituted krill pressed into fishy shapes. It was a little macabre for me but appeared popular with the locals. Apart from anything else, it smelled amazing. Mouth welled with drool, I sidled up and bartered one in exchange for one of my shoelaces. Between how hot it was and the speed with which I ate, it could’ve tasted like shit on a shingle for all I knew.

  A few furtive chats with some of these locals helped me understand what had happened to the lift. Years ago, when the stream of refugees fell to a trickle, the powers that be decided to lock down the Underground. No one getting in, and no one going out. The price of safety, they insisted. Not just to prevent the transmission of diseases, either. The surface had been taken over by those who refused to see sense: marauders and bandits, religious zealots and madmen. Killing and being killed by the terrible storms and other terrors. Better to keep Them outside and Us in.

  Of course, there was word of emergency egress. Up through the towers. Past levels of security and immigration controls. I was unlikely to be let through on account of my cough.

  “Unless you wanna sell someone that mutt of yours. Tower-folk gotta high value on any critters, but ’specially one that size.”

  I almost had a heart attack, because I could not understand how this person could possibly know about Doggo. I’d been so careful, and he was hiding … Then I looked down to find Doggo lying across my feet. Tail wagging, tongue lolling, he declared, “Now is later, and I have found the Food Bringer, for I am a clever and good boy!”