Fairy Tales: Unraveled: A twisted retell shorts collection

by Alana Greig

  It was freezing out there; a situation not helped by her bare feet sinking into the damp mud.

  I can’t believe I am about to bury my girlfriend within the foundation of my fucking garage. I need a drink.

  Jill started to place Alice down as gently as she could, but the body slipped out of her hands at the last moment. The sickening sound of her skull hitting the pile of broken concrete that was once the floor made Jill throw up. Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, Jill went back into the house and returned with a shovel and a bottle of vodka.

  The digging took hours, and the vodka was half gone by the time Jill was satisfied the hole was deep enough that no one would ever find Alice. Climbing out, she moved slowly toward the body. She tried to tell herself it was no longer Alice. Alice was dead and this was just a body. She repeated this in her mind as she pushed it over the lip of the pit. The sound was muted, but it was deathly quiet out, and Jill held her breath, praying that the sound had not carried and woken the neighbours.

  “I am so sorry, baby girl. I will love you forever, but I have to do this. Diana needs me and I need her.” Jill bit back the sob and reached for her shovel.

  THREE YEARS LATER…

  Jill and Diana only remained in that house for a year, and once she was sure that all suspicion had passed, they moved. She missed Alice every day. She had not killed her, far from it. However, the fact that she had buried her in an unmarked grave made her a criminal. By now, Diana had grown into a precious three-year-old. She loved to be outside in the garden. The Devon air seemed to agree with them both, and their days were filled with music and laughter.

  It was on the last day of summer that Diana told her mother that she had seen a white rabbit in the garden. Jill had told her wild rabbits were all over the fields behind their cottage home, and it was most likely looking for a vegetable patch now that the fields were on their fallow year. Diana was insistent that this was a very special rabbit. He wore a funny jacket without arms and had a clock on a string.

  Jill was transported back, five years to the night Alice had told her of her dream world, Wonderland, and the way she had found it by following a white rabbit in a waist coat and carrying a pocket watch.

  “Maybe it wants to show the way to Wonderland, honey,” Jill said, swinging her daughter up into her arms.

  “I had a friend once who told me that when she was a girl, she visited Wonderland all the time, and it was always a white rabbit that led the way. Just like the one you saw today.”

  Diana’s eyes were round.

  “Do you really think so, Mummy?”

  “Why not, sweetheart? If you can dream it, then it can become real.”

  The words tasted of ash on her tongue. If you can dream it, then it can become real. Was that what had happened to Alice? She remembered the night she died. She knew Alice had been having a nightmare. What if?

  “Mummy, come and play now, we might find the rabbit and our way to Wonderland.”

  Jill held her daughter close. The fields seemed too quiet now and the woods in the distance a little too dark.

  “Come on, little one, let’s go inside and make some cookies.”

  Once safely in the house with little Diana watching a movie and the smell of freshly baked cookies filling the cottage with a sweet, comforting aroma, Jill began to think she had overreacted.

  It was while she was at the sink rinsing the plates for the dishwasher the next day that she saw the white rabbit. It was on its hind legs with a watch in hand. It seemed to look her right in the eye and then very deliberately tap the face of its watch with its paw.

  “Time was running out,” it seemed to tell her. She blinked and the rabbit was gone. But deep down she knew what she had seen, and she also knew it would be back.

  Back for her Diana.

  ANGEL FACED DEMON

  BASED ON BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

  I was born on a cold November night. It was a difficult birthing; I was told my mother had laboured for three solid days and nights before I was forced into the world. They say there was much screaming and the midwife collapsed at the mere sight of me.

  “That is no child of mine!” my father apparently roared at my exhausted mother, as he slapped her clean across the face. To be as I am and to hear that one’s birth caused such violent reactions within the household was not the best day. Though, it was expected. Who would have been pleased to be presented with a twisted parody of humanity?

  “He is yours, and I shall love him.”

  My mother’s last words. Even now they mean so much to me; she died a few hours after my birth. The official story was blood loss, but in the 21st century that seems very unlikely to me. I believe my father killed her while she rested. Money can buy you anything, even an alibi. I often wonder why he didn’t just have me murdered along with her. There was ample opportunity, he was lord of a great manor, a powerful man. History has proven that those in nobility have often murdered those born deformed. The British are not above that, as much as they wish to believe it so. Yet I lived and was given the education a lordling such as myself should receive. Of course, this was all done covertly; I was given a suite of rooms and my own staff from the day I was born, and that is where I have remained for twenty-seven years, three days and 14 hours to be exact.

  Father is still alive; I hear him strolling in the gardens with his dogs, Arthur and Bastion. Giant wolfhounds. Sometimes I sit at my window and watch the two beasts run like the wind across the manicured gardens, towards the giant Douglas pine tree that stands proud at the centre of the walled garden my mother had so loved. I could visit the gardens once a day after dark, unless father was entertaining, then I would miss that day.

  I don’t know if father acknowledges my existence in the outside world. He never remarried and so there are no other children. Just me, his twisted beast boy. Alexander. I am quite hideous, it is true. I have webbed fingers and toes, severe scoliosis, and my left hand is quite useless. I stand at six feet tall despite my deformed spine. I have dark brown hair and green eyes, like my mother before me. The staff whisper about poor “Alexander the Angel Faced Demon.” I hate that they pity me.

  I could have had surgeries to correct my spine and had the webbing between my phalanges cut away; I would have gone through many surgeries, taken the pain and been grateful. If only to stop the staff calling me “the angel faced demon.” Father, such was his shame, would not allow me to attend even a private institution in another country.

  “What if someone were to see you?” he would bluster when I broached the subject at age twelve.

  “But, Father, I hurt. I have been reading; there are operations that could really ease the pain and make me more like you.” I should have never uttered those words. I will never forget the look in his eyes the moment the words tumbled out of my preadolescent mouth. He was horrified. I knew then that he hated me more than I thought possible. I also learned that he was the true beast within the walls of Hollowed Manor. What kind of parent could leave a child in pain when they had the power to ease it? To this day I have never understood it. I doubt I ever will.

  One day I will be free of him and this set of rooms on the second floor. My gilded prison. There is so much I want to see and experience. To fall in love and meet the man of my dreams. Oh yes, that is another thing that my father loathes about me. I am gay. It’s laughable really, in this day and age to feel disgusted because a human loves someone of the same gender. I am as God made me, and I will one day find the man I am meant to be with.

  That opportunity came ten years later. The Lord Graham Hollowed of Hollowed Manor had passed away in his sleep at the age of fifty-six. I mourned him of course, a beast he may have been, but he did keep me in comfort and provided me with an education. I did not love him, that is true, how can you love someone who you never really knew?

  The day of the funeral I was of course unable to attend. That had been some of his last words, “Keep the freak away from my funeral”, charming really. The reading of the
will was conducted in the drawing room. I again was not invited, and truthfully, I had no interest in hearing the lands and fortune being divided amongst distant family members who, up until he died, had not given my father a second thought. Death really brings out the worst in people. It came as a great surprise to discover that father had left me as his heir. I was the new lord of Hollowed Manor. A shock I am sure, to the room full of my extended family who had never set eyes on me. I did laugh when I was told. I know that was in bad taste. However, the man hated me with a passion yet here I am the lord of all that was his.

  Did I want it? That was the question. This house and its lands had been all I had known. The world is a vast place, and I had dreams to explore it and experience everything I could. At almost thirty-eight I have realised that I would likely never meet the man I dreamed of. I cried then, for it all. My birth, my mother, and even my father. He was of a generation that couldn’t deal with differences, and he was in a position, that to him, stressed the value of perfection above everything. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

  Three days after the reading of the will and my appointment as the new Lord of the Manor, I received a letter, my first ever. It was addressed to The Right Honourable Lord Alexander Hollowed. That took me aback. It all felt very real for the first time. I had arrived.

  Enclosed were letters from both my father and my mother. As I sat in my father’s old study, drinking Lady Grey tea with my own hound, Grayson, at my feet, I read the letter from my father first.

  DEAR ALEXANDER,

  The day you were born I was full of such hope for the future of our house. So, you see when I saw you for the first time it was like having the world I had planned so carefully for us snatched away. It was all so cruel. Kathleen, your mother, was so in love with you, her angel baby, the one she thought she would never have. I wanted to snatch you away and smother you. How could you be this when your mother and I were so strong and healthy? I was such a stupid man back then.

  I know you believe I had your mother killed; the staff whisper of it in the corridors. My son, you will learn this when you are Lord over them all. No, I will not disinherit you, Alexander. I have been a cruel father and for that I am sorry. There is no reason for what I did other than my pride was badly wounded, and I took it out on you. I believed for the longest time that you were something, someone, to be ashamed of, to hide away and forget about. After your mother died, I was a broken man. She was the light in my life, Alexander. She died in her sleep, a clot in her lungs. Of course, I blamed you for it. How stupid it all seems now knowing that my time is far shorter than I had anticipated.

  Maybe it is God’s punishment to take me in my prime, for ignoring my only son, my only connection to my Kathleen? I’ll find out when I meet my maker, I am sure. If I find your mother in heaven, if I am permitted entry, I will beg at her feet for forgiveness.

  So, my son, first and only born of me. I love you. Deep down I always have. Love and hate are separated by a knife-edge. One I have balanced on your whole life. I am sorry I never told you. I am sorry that I wasn’t the father you deserved, the one you needed. You have surprised me at every turn; you are handsome and extremely well read. Your school masters have told me over the years that you are nothing short of a genius. I missed it all. I heard you singing once. Your window was open, and I was out in the garden with the dogs. I am not ashamed to say I wept at hearing you. I had never heard such beauty since your mother. You have some many gifts, Alexander, use them my son. Go out into the world and use them.

  All my love,

  Papa

  I will be honest, I was inconsolable for a good few hours after reading his letter. He loved me. After years, decades of near solitude. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I still can’t to this day. My mother’s letter, I remember not wanting to open it, unsure I could take any more heartache that day or indeed in my lifetime. Taking a breath, I steeled myself and broke the seal on the letter from a woman I had loved my whole life but never met.

  My dearest Alexander, my angel,

  I knew you would be beautiful, how could you not be? You were created from love. The day you were born I was so tired. You made me wait, my angel, to meet you. Three days of labour were worth it though. How I loved you. Your beauty captivated me the second you were placed in my arms. Your father was emotional too. I don’t blame him for what happened in the birthing room; he was taken by surprise. Understand that he had been waiting for your arrival just as much as I. We were told we would never have a child, so to wait for you for nine long months and to have you not be as he expected his son to be was hard on him.

  He will get over his shock and see what I see. Our perfect child who we prayed for and now have. I have such plans for us, dear one, but I fear we may not get to see them through. I believe our time is far shorter than it should be. You are brand new and you need me. My body, I fear has other ideas, I can feel there is something wrong. I can’t tell your father; he has been through so much already and so I tell you, my angel. Love him, Alex, even if he finds it hard to love you in return. Love him as I love you, with an open heart and an endless supply of compassion and understanding. Family is the most important thing in the world. Remember that and you will always be a rich man.

  I am sorry our time is shorter than I had dreamed. You are the thing I am most proud of. You hold my heart forevermore.

  All my love, Mama

  So, beauty gave birth to the beast, or so everyone in Hollowed Manor believed. The truth was that beauty married for love, and when her child was born, the shock of his disfigurements turned his father into a beast. But in the end, love won out and the beast turned back into the man.

  I never liked fairy tales as a child, I found them dull and impossible. I wonder now though if that is truly the case? True, my story has a touch of the impossible about it. Impossibility is what drives us on though isn’t it? To overcome it and succeed no matter the odds.

  THREE YEARS LATER….

  “Do you, Alexander, take Jonathan to be your life partner?”

  The wedding I thought I’d never have, was perfect. At almost forty-two I had received surgery to correct my spine, not for vanity but to ease my pain. Jonathan and I have been very happy together these last two years, and our wedding was all I could have hoped for. My next plan is to adopt some children to fill the manor with laughter and sticky handprints. It’s a shame I may never see it. I have cancer, it was found during my back surgery. Stage three bone cancer of the spine. I haven’t told Jonathan yet; he is far too happy, and I don’t want to steal that joy away from him. I’ll write to him like my parents wrote to me. He will have a keepsake then and something to show our children as I have a feeling the paperwork will be accepted in time for us to enjoy a few months of being called Papa together. I wish I could save him and them from what is to come.

  His fairy tale is about to become a horror story. Not all horror stories are about murders and ghosts; real horror resides within us all and on occasion it breaks forth and terrifies even those with the strongest of characters. There will be no happy ever after for me. I am the Angel Faced Demon, I shouldn’t have expected one.

  RICHER THAN LOVE

  BASED ON THE GIANT AND THREE GOLDEN HAIRS

  One bright summer’s morning, a child was born. This child was special. He was born within his caul. His mother was overjoyed as such a birth prophesied long-life, riches, and marriage to a high-born lady.

  “My sweet boy, I shall call you William. It is a noble name and will suit you well when you are a lord,” Martha spoke the soft words to baby William with hope in her heart that he would have the future she would never be able to offer him.

  A few weeks later, while Martha was tending to the chickens and William was laying in his crib in the shade of the old oak tree, a herald approached them. His livery and grey gelding told Martha this was a royal herald. Stumbling to her feet and brushing chicken feed from her callused palms, she approached the little wooden gate to her modest home an
d waited for the herald to reach her. The sun glinted off his steed’s polished tack, causing Martha to shield her eyes from the glinting bridle.

  By the grace of God, what a hovel, the herald thought, casting his small grey eyes over the dwelling and the scruffy peasant before him. “I come in the name of King David. Word has reached the castle that a boy was born with a great prophecy attached to him. Do you know of this boy?”

  Martha had no love for the new king. He was a cruel man. In fact, she felt sorry for his wife. She had not been seen since she birthed a daughter last winter. The king had wanted sons; he had not attended the naming ceremony for his own daughter, and that had horrified Martha. Knowing that William could not been seen, she prayed he stay quiet. “Good day, royal herald to our great and kind king, I have heard the murmurs, but alas, my baby died not long after his birth. It pains me so to have lost both him and his father in the same season.” Martha willed her eyes to tear.

  Sneering at the pathetic creature before him, the herald rolled his eyes. “Very well, I shall leave you to go about your business.” With that, he kicked his horse and trotted away, leaving Martha coughing on dust from the road.

  I must hide William.

  Now that she had lied to a representative of the royal house, she could not keep him here. The thought of being parted from the beloved child broke her tired heart, but she knew that to keep him alive, she must let him go.

  William was moved from one family to another, until one winter’s night the king’s guard came for him. A greedy merchant had given up his whereabouts for two bolts of silk. Six-month-old William was taken to the king at his hunting lodge; he did not want his queen to see the babe in case she fell in love with him. The thought had crossed his mind that he could take the boy home as his ward to keep him from marrying his daughter.