Fractured Fairy Tales

by Catherine Stovall

Staring at the red on her hands and aching fingers, Ellie realized she wasn’t crying. No tears erupted from her eyes and no sob came from her burning throat. With the drops of blood that stained her dress, the young girl stood up tall and walked down the row of frosted bodies. She was Ayden’s only hope. Martha didn’t know where they were, and her parents weren’t going to save her, not while that witch still lived. She decided to rescue her brother, even if it killed her.

  She reached the end of the room and pressed an ear to it, searching for the sounds of her brother. There were muffled voices on the other side and that made Ellie smile. She knew, deep in her heart, that her brother was there. All she had to do was break down the wall or find a trapdoor or…

  Frowning, she felt cool air brush up her ankle. Ellie gazed down and squealed at finding an air vent big enough for her to fit through. That squeal travelled through the vent and out into the grand hall where Ayden stood with his head tilted toward the wall that separated him and his sister.

  “What is that?” he asked as the woman he loved unbuttoned his shirt. “I know that sound…”

  “Just the wind,” the woman frowned slightly when she, too, heard the cry of the girl that had entered her home with her new toy. When the shirt was open and she spied smooth pale skin beneath, she smiled up into the handsome face of the boy. He smiled back at her. “You are with me now, Ayden. Stay with me forever, and forget about the world outside.”

  “Yes,” he leaned into her.

  He allowed her to run her hands down his chest, but his smile faltered slightly. His hands were itching to remove the veil. Reaching up slowly, as not to scare her away, he touched the thin lace of her veil that matched the train of her suit, and slowly started to lift it.

  Immediately, his hands were slapped away and the woman was staring at him with silver fire glowing from where her eyes had been.

  “Don’t,” she commanded him.

  “Why not?” he asked, stepping up to her. “Let me see you.”

  “In due time, my love,” she brushed a hand down her long silky hair. “Right now, I need you to forget everything and everyone.”

  A crash came from the vent in the wall, distracting Ayden. Madam Nix sighed and clicked her fingers. Frost, as sharp as glass and even colder than her skin, surrounded the vent and secured it to the wall. Then the woman quickly went up to the boy and cupped his face in her hands.

  “Forget,” she leaned in.

  Ayden didn’t struggle. He didn’t think about why the vent was speaking in a familiar voice, and he didn’t worry about why the love of his life wouldn’t show her face to him. He just stood there and felt her lips brush over his through the veil.

  Her kiss was like ice.

  The cold seeped through his lips and travelled down to embed in his heart. Once the woman’s touch created tiny flakes of frost around his heart, Ayden forgot. He forgot about his home, he forgot about Martha who had raised him, he forgot about his gloomy room and silent piano, and he forgot about his sister.

  In a rush, Ayden wrapped his arms around the slender body of his love and pressed his lips to hers once again. The cold wiped his mind clean, leaving behind only the smell, taste and feel of her. The Snow Queen. The most beautiful creature.

  When he pulled away and tried to steal another kiss, the woman pushed against his bare chest and wagged a finger at him. “No more kisses for you, my dear,” was her reply to his pout. “If I were to kiss you again, it would be to the death!”

  “I don’t care,” Ayden gripped her tighter. “Please, my queen.”

  The vent crashed to the ground with a kick and a curse. Ayden pulled away from the smiling lips of the madam and saw a girl crawl out from the wall. She wore a dress speckled in red, her hands clutched to her heart as she stood, and her eyes glowed ice blue as she stared at him, then his love.

  Ellie huffed out a heavy breath to clear it of the frost she had breathed on to melt the vent free, and faced the ice witch. Captured in her brother’s arms, the woman turned to her with a snarl and placed her hands on her hips.

  Ayden blinked, confusion fogging his mind. The girl from the wall…she had his eyes and his nose. They even shared the same shade of fair hair, only her face was burning red from rage. Her eyes sent daggers at the beautiful creature beside him.

  Why would she hate his love? Why would she, such an ugly little thing, look at her as if she were a monster?

  “Ayden,” the girl with yellow hair spoke to him. “Get away from her. She is a witch!”

  “Don’t pay her any attention, my pet,” the witch told him. “This little rat will be out of our lives shortly.”

  “I won’t let you hurt him!” Ellie pointed a bloodied finger at her. “You kept our parents here for years! I will not allow you to take my brother as well!”

  “Brother?” Ayden frowned, staring at the floor.

  “Hush, snowflake,” she touched his cheek and stepped in front of him to block his view of Ellie.

  “Why did you do this?” the girl asked the madam.

  “Because I wanted Ayden,” the woman shrugged, almost bored. “I had to get him here. He is just perfect.”

  “You are insane,” Ellie walked up to her. “You can’t just kidnap young boys! I saw what you did to them.”

  The woman shrugged again and went up to Ayden—who still stared at his feet. She wrapped her arms around his body and smiled at the girl through her veil. “They all failed, but Ayden is the one,” she held her lips near his cheek, but didn’t let them touch his skin. “His heart is as cold as mine.”

  “You’re wrong!” Ellie walked right up to her brother, making the woman hiss and jump away, as the girl took her brother’s hands in hers. “Ayden, snap out of it. She is the one who stole our parents and left us orphans for years. They are here, Ayden, right downstairs. We can be a family again, with Martha, in our beautiful home.”

  The boy, almost a young man, looked into the eyes of the girl he didn’t know and saw that she wasn’t about to cry, scream or fight. She stood strong, her touch so warm, and eyes filled with determination. She reminded him of his sister…

  What was her name? “Ellie,” he whispered.

  The girl smiled softly and gave him such a tight hug that he lost his breath. He didn’t know how to respond. He was tempted to hug her back, but the air grew colder and something stung in his eye.

  “Don’t touch him!” a shrill voice sliced at his ears. “You are ruining him!”

  Snow entered the room, falling softly from the ceiling and touched ice onto their heads. Ayden turned to see his love had changed. She looked so different. Skin turning blue and eyes bright silver, he started to fear the woman who had captured his heart.

  “Ayden, we have to leave,” the girl tugged at his arm.

  Ayden watched as his beloved raised her arms and the open windows let in the darkness from outside. An icy wind swirled around the hall, pelting him with ice and smothering the warm glow from the chandeliers. All the while, the Snow Queen stood smiling as the wind moaned and the storm whistled around them mercilessly. The rapping of the windows, the flutter of curtains and the groan from the storm harmonized into a tune; a song that took him back in time to when he would listen to his sister humming each night in her room before crying herself to sleep.

  His sister.

  The girl right beside him.

  Ellie.

  “I remember…” he lost focus on the woman and looked at his sister. The wind wiped her hair around her worried face, but all he saw was a beautiful young girl who had matured into a fighter. “Ellie,”

  “No!” the madam wailed. “I will not let him go! I made sure to keep your parents here so that his heart would darken deliciously. I knew he wouldn’t accept my invite, but of course he would follow his foolish sibling anywhere. I waited too long for this!” the storm grew angrier, now pelting hail and blades of ice. “He is mine! My ice prince. My heir to the throne!”

  “No, I’m not!” Ayden faced her.

/>   The wind was so harsh that it picked up the veil covering the woman’s face and Ayden, with his sister, saw the monster beneath. Skin cracked and bitter blue, the Snow Queen was truly a horrid witch. The beautiful glow from her hair paled and turned to a watery green. No longer a creature of flawless ice; the woman in a wrinkled black suit and gnarled teeth looked more like a monster born of a swamp.

  Water dripped from her fingertips and her green hair grew damp as she sent the storm at the siblings clutching at each other. Ayden turned Ellie away from her attack, his back to the storm, and prayed that she would survive—even if he didn’t.

  Just the thought of him saving that ugly little girl made the witch scream and pull at her hair.

  The estate shook and shouts came from the guests still dancing downstairs. Ellie pulled away from her brother and stared at the storm heading their way; a wave of white and deathly cold.

  “No!” Ayden kept her down. “When this is over, get to mother and father, and leave this place. I won’t let you die because of me.”

  “And I’m not going to leave you here!” Ellie told him, and then did something she hadn’t done in years.

  She pulled her dear brother into her arms and placed a kiss on his forehead. The warm touch, just that small spark of heat, flowed down his body like hot oil to melt the frost from his heart. Pain throbbed in his chest, and her brother let a single tear roll from his eye. The sharp prick in his gaze disappeared, and so did the ice that had once encased his heart.

  “I love you, Ayden,” Ellie smiled at him. “You were the best brother ever.”

  “Ellie, don’t!”

  But it was too late.

  The young girl, who had once cried about everything and hated her life, flung herself at the ice witch. Ayden lost sight of her as the storm of snow fell on top of him. Cold surrounded him completely. Ice above, ice below, ice within. Ayden tried to calm his breathing as silence shut him away from his sister, the one thing in the world he truly cared about.

  He couldn’t hear her voice anywhere. Was she still alive? It was so quiet; he feared that he was dead already. But then his clothes became damp from the pile of snow, and he struggled to breathe. He was still alive…for now.

  A burning rage entered his body, the feel of Ellie’s kiss still on his skin, and he started to dig. Up and up he went, not even knowing if he was going in the right direction. All he knew was that his sister needed him. His arms strained against the thick cold and his lungs burned as the air disappeared.

  Just one more push, he thought, just one more…

  His fist went through the snow and struck air. Heart in his throat and ears ringing, Ayden pulled himself out of the snow and shook flakes from his hair as he searched for Ellie. He gaped when he finally opened his eyes. The entire grand hall was filled with snow. White lay in piles in the corners and clung to the crystals of the chandeliers. But there was no sign of a yellow haired girl.

  “Ellie!” he called out, pulling his legs free and shrugging off the wet coat of fur from his burning shoulders. “Ellie, where are you?”

  Stepping down the hill of snow, Ayden went to where he had last seen her with the witch and started digging feverishly. His back ached and his fingers were numb, but he kept on digging; kept on searching and praying and pleading.

  “Don’t you dare be dead.” He felt his eyes grow wet. “Don’t do this to me, El.”

  White snow gave way to blue ice, then black hail, and then red. Red smeared across the floor and red stained in the cold. Ayden stared at it breathless and numb, vision blurring. There was no body. No footprint or piece of clothing. Only redness across white.

  “Ellie!” his voice echoed through the room, muffled and sounding like a small child. His wail joined that of the wind swirling outside, which touched the cooling tears on his cheeks and chin. “Ellie…Ellie…”

  Ayden bowed to the snow and pressed his forehead against the blood. His sister’s kiss still burned on his skin, and he hoped to never lose that as well. The wind hummed to him, seeming to comfort his broken heart, and touched cold fingers against his back.

  “Ellie?” Ayden glanced up at the touch.

  The wind picked up the snowflakes bathed in red and let them dance in front of his eyes and sway back and forth. Ayden followed their little dance, his gaze moving up to the stage where the throne of the witch sat empty and covered in frost. But then he blinked…

  The flakes of red picked up the patterns of frost and danced around them, persuading them to form a shape…the shape of a young girl.

  Ayden didn’t hesitate. He ran toward the snow being picked up and gathering together. The girl was made of ice, with skin a blush pink and hair so blue. But she looked the same. She looked so beautiful. In that moment, when she smiled at him with lips of silver, Ayden thought she was perfect.

  “El,” he reached out for her.

  “Looks like there is a new queen around here,” she laughed and reached out to his outstretched hand. She was icy cold, but Ayden didn’t mind. He sank against her cut glass skin and held her, even though his body heat made her hair melt. “I’m never letting you go, Brother.”

  She pulled away from him and he noticed something as she spoke.

  He frowned. Did his sister always have such sharp teeth?

  Silver lips parted and his blue eyes widened.

  “Together forever,”

  The Snow Queen smiled wickedly.

  Luvia

  Stephen T. De Marino

  The children did their best not to sneeze as the dust flew by them in their hiding place. The little giggles that escaped were beyond the notice of the woman wielding the broom; her focus so intensely involved in her sweeping that the breathy laughter coming from the balcony railing was of little consequence.

  Melisan swayed as though to hidden music, each step artfully placed as if she were dancing to the outside viewer. Her bunched skirts, the precise angles of her ankles, and how she held her broom in such a way, that it was away from her body, yet part of it, maneuvering and flowing with it, all led the children to believe she was dancing with a lord in her somewhat broken mind.

  “Do you think it was Lord, or some handsome Servitor?” whispered Lanai.

  “Probably just an ugly pig farmer who was nice to her, I should think” retorted Lucas. He was all of seven turns of the Orrery, yet he felt himself to be the champion of propriety and maturity in the face of his younger sisters’ giggles and games.

  “Oh, go on with you, pig farmer indeed,” interjected Luvia, looking down at the maid as she swept the floor, her broom handle moving back and forth. “There is no pig farmer, no matter how nice, going to make her dance like that. That’s something else…something bigger.” She poked her twin sister, who was holding back another snort of laughter, in the ribs.

  As the children watched, Melisan worked the room, always starting in the North Corner, and working her way through the points of the compass. Her feet would always follow the grain of the wooden planks in the floor, stepping one parallel and the next perpendicular. First pass was right hand leading, her elbow up, the next was left hand leading, elbow down. Step, step, sweep, sweep, all along the walls she went, her body bending with the grace of long years of practice as she came to each obstacle, a dresser, an armoire, the linen closet. Each time, the broom would move, its axis changing as it removed the cobwebs and dust from around each piece of furniture.

  Luvia could hear Melisan muttering in a gentle sing-song, though she didn’t understand the words.

  “Traitor’s gate, Balun’s gate, there’s your fate. Move the dust we say, or there will be night to pay, crows are on their way. Leave the bit by the door, but clean every floor. Water gate, Fire gate, set your guards or they will hate. Crows will come in the night, and then it will be too late to fight. Traitor’s Gate, Balun’s gate, there’s your fate…” On and on it went.

  Luvia wondered at it, what the song meant to the broken little maid. She sang it gently under her breath as sh
e cleaned, her broom removing everything that hid under the furniture, leaving no place upon the floor untouched. Despite her odd way of walking, Melisan never missed a spot. The entire floor was touched by her broom, every square inch was swept in a precise, distinct fashion, the pattern etched into her steps.

  As the children watched, Melisan finished her sweeping, bringing all the dust into a neat little pile in the South corner of the room, where she took it outside, and with words not heard by the little spies, cast it onto the rubbish pile out back. She returned shortly, her echoing steps warning the children of her arrival, carrying a rag and bottle of oil.

  As Luvia watched intently, Melisan would again, start in the North corner, and in a pattern that the children couldn’t quite make out, would begin to wipe down every piece of furniture. Some she would start on the top, moving everything off, wiping down the whole piece, the oil picking up the dust and removing it all. Others, she would start low, and work her way up, her fingers moving into every crevice and crenellation, rooting out the offensive bits of air-travelled earth that had hidden there.

  “I’m bored,” grumped Lucas, and Lanai nodded affirmatively with him.

  Luvia shushed them. “I want to figure out why she does it, what it means.”

  “What what means, Luvy?” whispered Lanai.

  “Yeah, what do you mean, what it means?” added Lucas. “She is just a broken old doll. Papa only keeps her around because she cleans so well. I mean her whole thing about any bird statue facing the window is weird. How she gets stressed if Papa or Mama move a room around, keening in that creepy voice of hers about how she has to ‘change the pattern’. How can you think there is anything in that head of hers but dust?” Lucas scoffed and turned his back to his sisters, figuring that was the last word, since he was the oldest.

  Luvia mused over Melisan. She had watched her for many days, and the obsessive way she did things, the patterns, the ritual to it all fascinated her. It was like the priests on Torsday morning service. They, too, prayed to the four corners, and had a pattern to everything they did. Maybe this was Melisan’s way to pray. Somehow, it didn’t seem right to Luvia, but still she kept watch, thinking it over.