by Ken Brosky
“You are as you were written,” I said.
The fox bowed low, his little black ears flicking. “I will show you something else, if you’ll allow it.”
My grip on the pen had softened. How could I kill this creature? What was he, besides a helpful fox? Oh, Abigail, you lack an adequate amount of suspicion, just like your mother. You and she have always searched for the good in people. Your mother once helped a beggar who turned out to be a thief and regretted nothing because she’d been convinced from the look in his eyes that he was capable of a good deed. One more good deed in the world might change everything, she always said.
And now here I was, putting my trust in a fox that should not exist, convincing myself that his one good deed might outweigh whatever evil he would someday commit. This quality will kill you some day, Abigail.
“Over there,” the fox said, pointing with his black snout toward the blossoming cherry trees. He trotted beside me, inhaling deeply through his nose. “Ah, such a smell! I value these intoxicating scents, I truly do. It is almost worth the misery of knowing what I will someday become.”
“It smells like flowers,” I said, staring up at the red-and-pink blooms covering the long, narrow branches of each tree. They were still a beautiful sight after all these years. Each cherry tree stood tall, with branches that reached for the heavens. I remember as a child walking with my mother down a particular path in our town that was lined with cherry trees. When they blossomed in the spring, the hundreds of shades of red and pink were enough to take your breath away. It’s so easy to forget about those warm colors in the wintertime.
“You poor human,” the fox tut-tutted. “Such a puny sense of smell. But perhaps you should learn to trust your nose, if you’re going to be hunting the hunters. This is why the fairy captured me, you know. She couldn’t smell a thing with that nose of hers.”
More to write tomorrow. I am so tired. I dread sleep, knowing that I will dream once again of the doctor.
May 17, 1817
Back to my story of the curious fox, for he had so much more to show me, and I must write it down so that the knowledge can be passed on.
“Kneel down here in the dirt,” he ordered. We were beside a cherry tree, an older one with thick bark that had been peeled a bit by the teeth of a curious deer. A few pink petals had fallen onto the ground, which was otherwise barren near the trunk of the tree. What few blades of grass were growing were sparse and short, not quite sure if the warm spring air was here to stay yet. “This is as good a place as any. Do you know what a sword is made of?”
“No,” I confessed.
“Oh. Um.” The fox looked around, his short fluffy tail wagging anxiously from side to side. “Well, how about a spear? That seems simple enough.”
“No.”
His fur stood on end. “Well, what do you know?!”
Tears welled in my eyes. It was as if he’d honed in on my darkest fear. “I was not allowed in school. The headmaster taught only boys. I was expected to marry a young man named Lars on my fourteenth birthday, but he contracted the Black Death five years ago and passed away. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry!” The fox snorted. “Don’t apologize to me … you’re the one who was engaged to be married before you were old enough to steer a carriage.” He began pacing. “Can you read, at least?”
“Yes. I can write and read well enough, but I grew up reading the same few books my family owned. Adventure books, mostly, written by traveling merchants and sold to my father for sheepskins and only on the rare occasion he had a spare one.”
“Then you must read more. Your mind is your weapon, you see. Here. How about this, then? A shield. That should do you well for the time being. Do you know what a shield is made of?”
“Wood,” I said simply.
“Yes, wood. Excellent. Use your pen to draw a shield right there in the dirt. Yes, good … imagine the shield in your mind. Imagine the shield being crafted from the finest cherry tree. Imagine the handle. Imagine a design on the front, too, why not? Good. Oooooh, a dragon emblem. Very proper for fighting monsters.”
The lines glowed in the dirt. I felt my heart race. I’d drawn a shield that looked oddly familiar. It was shaped a bit like a triangle, wider than my shoulders, with an emblem of a dragon directly in the center. I suddenly realized that this was the very same shield found in the King Arthur storybook that my mother read to me and my cousins! It had been purchased by our father while he’d been away during trading season. My mother had read it to us every single night for nearly a year, gathering us all on one bed where we lay like a pack of dogs. My mother’s sweet voice would turn sour whenever she brought up the fierce dragon King Arthur had to destroy. Her passion made me fear King Arthur would fail each time, and every night she would slowly turn the pages, sometimes revealing drawings that she herself had made whenever there was ample space in the text. With this, she made each night’s storytime new, adding more and more charcoal drawings at the end of each chapter.
But he never did. His shield protected him from the dragon’s flames.
“Grab it,” the fox ordered.
“But …”
“Trust me now.”
I reached down, touching the drawing. The golden lines flickered, disappearing. The dirt was not dirt at all but wood! I pulled the shield from the ground and granules of black earth fell away from its edges. I flipped it over with shaky hands—sure enough, there was a wooden handle on the back, carved out of the wood.
The fox leaned in, examining the shield with a keen eye. “Hmmmm. Could be better. See how it’s bigger on one side? Try again, and this time imagine the shield balanced. Both sides should be the same size and weight, so it’s easy to carry.”
I drew another shield in the dirt. This shield was a little bigger, big enough to protect my entire body from a dragon’s flame. I kept the emblem, and tried my best to picture the shield as perfect as it was in my memory. I pulled this new shield from the ground, marveling all over again. Here was a wooden shield where before there had just been dirt! It was heavy, the edges rough and granular, but balanced enough that I could hold it square.
“How is this possible?” I exclaimed.
“It is merely the power of the pen. I do not know the specifics.”
“But how do you know?”
“Because.” The fox licked the dirt off one paw. “After that terrible lion devoured the horse and his master, it wasn’t long before a strange young woman arrived in town. Now, close your eyes and imagine the poor people in this small town. One day, suddenly, there is a man with a horse living on the eastern edge of town, tucked into the pine forest, living in a house that had not been there just days before! What to make of that?”
“I suppose one might be suspicious,” I offered. I did not want to tell the fox this, but our town had suffered a similar occurrence shortly after the Black Death spread through our town in 1812. A man dressed in royal colors arrived into town one day on behalf of King Hein, whom none of us had ever heard of before. The man demanded fealty and our town leader gave it, sure that there was another war brewing in the east.
“Now imagine that man and his horse are eaten by a lion, a creature that no one had ever seen before! I would avoid that house, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But then this young woman arrived, seeking out that very house. The townsfolk had all manner of theories, calling her a witch and whatnot. Uncaring of their opinions, the strange woman went right into the woods, and of course I had to follow out of curiosity. It was there that she destroyed the lion.”
I held up the pen, causing the fox to flinch. “With this?” I asked.
The fox shook his head. “No. She drew something in the ground: a spear. It was crude, but it kept the lion at bay. And when she stabbed him …”
“He burned away like paper on fire,” I finished.
The fox nodded. “I chose not to follow her any further, for obvious reasons.”
“She was kil
led by another Corrupted,” I said, remembering the words of the woman who’d given me the pen. “She dropped the pen. And two days later, a woman named Hanna found the pen. And when she touched the pen, she suddenly knew it belonged to her. And she began having terrible dreams.”
“And then?” The fox asked, his tail wagging and thumping on the grass.
“And then she was injured by … something. I found her hiding between two houses in our town. She gave me the pen. But she said nothing about how I might be able to use the pen to draw magical weapons.”
“Knowledge not written down is often lost forever,” the fox said. “No doubt there have been many these past few years, and each one has had to learn how to wield this magic pen without any help. But now you have this knowledge. You can write it down. And you can use it against the Corrupted who haunt your dreams.”
“A shield will hardly kill this particular doctor,” I said, hefting the heavy piece of wood. Already, my shoulder was sore from the weight.
“What about using the pointy end?” the fox asked, motioning with his snout toward the V-shaped bottom of the shield.
I looked at it. Yes, it was pointed. Not sharp enough to do anything more than cut a creature, but perhaps that would be enough.
May 21, 1817
The dreams have gotten more intense the closer I get to Kassel. The doctor is not alone in my dreams anymore. He is with two older gentlemen with thinning hair and stout features. They sit, staring dreamily into the flames of a fire. They seem under a spell. They are in danger.
I’ve drawn a new shield, and in town I shall pay a blacksmith to attach the handle with more care than I can imagine on my own. This was the fox’s idea.
I did not kill him. I hope perhaps someday I will meet him again under good circumstances, if only to see a familiar face and enjoy his company and try not to think about the inevitable end to his story.
And mine.
I miss my family. I want to see my mother and father again, but I am too afraid. Who might be watching? What danger would I put them in? Just thinking of it makes my chest tighten. It becomes hard to breathe. It is as if touching this pen means abandoning all you know and love and starting anew.
In a much more terrifying world.
May 22, 1817
I have arrived in Kassel. It is a bustling city of middling size, with cobblestone streets and tall brick homes with stone roofs. The people dress well and keep animals in small pens behind their houses. There are a few shops on the main road, and children carry wooden pails to and from the well near the center of town. I was surprised, at first, to see such small children carrying such large pails with ease. But it seems as if everyone in this town is used to working hard. They move with purpose, hopping between rooftops as they repair areas damaged by the harsh winter. More yet carve wood for fencing with ferocious hacks of their axes.
No one looks healthy. Even the children seem to be carrying themselves as one does after a plague has moved through … they have an exhausted determination. I breathed in deeply through my nose when I arrived, just as the fox had taught me. I could smell livestock, and fresh mortar, and something else I could not quite place. Mint?
I have only a few coins to my name now, after having paid a blacksmith to fashion a handle for my new shield. He told me a young woman should not carry a shield around. He also told me a young woman should not travel alone.
And then he drank the most curious drink: a green tonic, almost glowing, bubbling in its glass jar.
May 23, 1817
I’ve learned another trick, thanks in no small part to the fox’s instruction. When I was a child, I had but one possession: a wooden doll with a simple cotton dress and straw hair. The straw would fall apart over time and so each summer, my father would have to replace each strand. The doll’s features were painted with white paint and black ink. The dress was dyed indigo using a dye extracted from sea snails.
My father had traded for the doll in the French city of Marseille, where his merchant’s guild had traveled one summer to trade sheepskins after a disease ravaged the livestock in southern France. I still have it. I keep it in my sheepskin and hold it at night.
My point is that I know this doll by heart. And so this morning I used the magic pen to draw three of them on the ground behind the market stalls on the south end of Kassel. I took the three dolls to market, trading them for a new dress, some food, and a place to stay the night. The man who purchased them told me a young female traveler would arouse suspicions. It was not right for a woman to travel without a male companion. I thanked him curtly, anxious to escape his presence.
He dismissed me as if I needed permission, grabbing his glass of bubbling green tonic and sipping from it. I watched in horror as the skin on his face grew paler, the wrinkles on his forehead caving in on themselves. I could smell the liquid. Its minty scent tickled my nose and made my eyes water.
May 24, 1817
The doctor … he is slowly poisoning the two men he is staying with. They are brothers, middle-aged, and seem as if at any moment they may fall from their chairs in front of the fireplace. In my dream last night, the doctor fed the men the very same green tonic that everyone in town seems to be drinking. They are growing pale, almost skeletal.
I went to the small library next to the mayor’s house. It is little more than a single room, hot except near the one open window, and the old smell of the books made my nose itch. I found but a handful of medical books, each one bulky and rusted-looking. I searched for the side effects I was seeing in the people, but found nothing.
I could not look long. The books are a reminder of the life I almost had. The young man I’d been arranged to marry … if he had not died of the Plague, I would have never met Hanna and never received the magic pen. I would have been a librarian’s wife, and that would have been the end of my story. What kind of life might that have been? This man promised to me had not been a kind man, but he’d at least been polite, and was happy to show me how to find books in the town library, and promised once we were married he would bring home any book I wanted.
I’d had no choice in a husband … my parents simply gave me away to someone with social status. With no son of their own to inherit their little patch of land, they offered me to someone whom they hoped would at least make me smile sometimes.
May 25, 1817
Hungry. Tired. I drew three more dolls using the magic pen and sold them to the same merchant as before. He was happy for them, but offered me half he’d paid me the last time. He told me they were worth less now, even though he had already sold all of the previous ones. He talks down to me because I am a woman.
He looks ten years older than he did just two days ago. The entire town looks as if age has come upon them like a storm. Time is running out. I must confront the doctor soon. I am afraid.
May 26, 1817
I approached the home of where the doctor was staying, terrified and sick to my stomach. I worried at first that I might be seen, but it was clear now that nearly everyone was under the spell of this doctor. Most have grown so weak that they cannot leave their beds.
The town’s roads are empty. A traveling merchant arrived in the evening and saw me walking. He asked me where he might get a safe night’s rest.
“Travel north,” I told him. “You’ll find no safety here.”
He nodded, kicking his horse and trotting down the street.
Shield clutched in my right hand, I approached the door of the doctor’s house. I could hear a great shouting coming from inside. But it was not an angry sort of shouting. Rather, it was the shouting of a man infused with happiness. One could almost call it singing, if the voice had not been so out of key.
A mosquito hovered near my eyes, then landed on the window beside the door, no doubt drawn to the soft orange light coming from within. The air was warm and dry, but sweat had gathered on forehead nonetheless. I wiped it away with a shaky hand. Then I saw the name etched above the door.
Grimm.
>
My skin tingled. The two men in my dream … what was the doctor doing with them?
I considered knocking, then cursed myself for being so foolish. But then, I thought: would he answer? Could I perhaps trick him?
Too late—the door opened! The doctor stood in front of me, looking down with contemptible curiosity. His dark black mustache covered his upper lip but it was clear he was smiling. He wore a white apron stained with the same green liquid that everyone was drinking. His hands were covered by heavy black gloves.
“Who are you?” he asked happily. “Do you need more tonic? I am in the process of making a fresh batch.”
“Yes,” I croaked. “I need more tonic.”
“Come in, come in.” He stepped aside, eyeing my shield. “A curious accessory.”
“The night is full of dangerous things,” I said, stepping inside the room, trying to take it in while ensuring the doctor was not out of sight. The room was large, with a brick fireplace and roaring fire. The brothers sat near the fire in identical rocking chairs, their heads slumped over as if they might fall asleep at any moment. Wrinkles ran across their face with an almost painful intensity; on the shoulders of their black suits were a dozen thinning white hairs.
Near the tall bookcase on the far wall, the doctor had set up a table full of potions in glasses of all shapes and sizes. Like a true vagrant, he’d simply tossed aside the brothers’ writing desk, leaving it to sit on its side with their papers littering the floor.
He moved to the table, humming to himself. “A tonic like this is quite special, you know. It will make you strong. You will see things. The people of this town wanted to build a cobblestone road in order to attract this season’s spring trade caravans. But they had so little time! My tonic helped them complete the road so quickly that merchants began using their road almost immediately.”
I stepped closer.
“Of course,” the doctor continued, “you may experience some side-effects. But that’s the way of things. You can trust me, for I am a doctor.”
