The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures

by Sebastian Gregory

  Light blinded her, but it was welcome to do so; fresh air bathed and soothed her. She held her hand to protect her eyes. When she adjusted she was in the courtyard of the asylum. The dark crumbling buildings stood like broken giants. Smoke rose from them in places in angry spiralling plumes into the blue sky where ravens circled. Windows were smashed and scattered. Iron bars ripped from the very stone and debris had been thrown to the gravel. The sounds of mania deep in the background of the asylum rose thicker than the smoke. Red limped past the dead and dying and the lost and the insane. No one stopped her. Anyone who had survived the night gave her no attention.

  She saw a girl sitting on a tuffet, eating spiders with curds and whey. A naked man ran past screaming about his set of new clothes. The great black gate had been opened wide and all the asylum’s horses and all the asylum’s men had left, never to be seen again. Red simply stepped through to freedom, for whatever magic had previously parted the forest of thorns had not done so now. The carriages and horses along with any passenger and driver had gone to their doom. Broken and twisted, the corpse of carriage and flesh alike. They were held fast by thorns like broken baubles on a horrific Christmas tree. She walked to that wall of twisted tendrils of the evil vegetation and weeds stretching for miles and miles. There would be no way around it at all. It was then that the shadow crept over her and a chill tickled her spine. She turned to see the giant form of the wolf.

  Previously Red Riding Hood had only seen the wolf in half-light. But now here under the clearest of days the wolf was the most terrible of all creatures. Its bristled fur, sharp as needles, was the black colour of nightmares and covered its entire huge, muscled form except in the patch to the right of its face, which was red and raw from their last meeting. One eye was hatred yellow and the other, amongst the damaged fur and flesh, was white as marble. As were the fangs that dripped slobber into the dirt.

  “You,” sneered Red, her heart beating so hard in her chest, she could almost hear nothing else.

  The wolf growled. “They took you away from me but I followed your scent. It was seared into my skin and I tore the asylum down to find you, little girl.”

  Red Riding Hood held her ground in the huge beast’s shadow. She could smell its hot breath on the air and it huffed and puffed. Steam rose from its pitch-black fur.

  “You think I fear you?” she said. “You took everything from me, including my sanity, with not even fear for comfort. You mean nothing, wolf, nothing.” Her words were pure contempt.

  The wolf began stalking forward, its claws digging furrows into the ground.

  “There is always more to take, little girl. There is always the bones.”

  And the wolf remembered…

  Into the forest so long ago under warmth of the trees, Grandma picked toadstools into her basket. The flowers were bright and birds were playful in the trees. The scrawny man approached, stumbling through the undergrowth. He wore rags and fell to his knees. When he opened his eyes the grandma’s kind face was peering back.

  “Still, sir, still—you are exhausted.”

  “Thank you, kind madam.”

  The grandma saw the blood on the man’s rags.

  “Are you hurt, sir?”

  “No, madam, the blood is not mine. It was a wolf—a wolf attacked our village. I escaped but I was the only one,” he said, falling into exhaustion.

  “My home is not too far and my granddaughter will be here soon. She will bring help.”

  “All the better,” he murmured.

  And back at the asylum the wolf lurched after the girl, jaws as wide as the gates of hell. The girl was quick and ran but this time not out of fear. Instead into the forest of thorns she went, leading the wolf as if he were the prey and the tiny girl in the blood-red hood were the hunter.

  The thorns held no fear for the girl. She followed her grandma’s advice and her boots held to the path. She ducked and moved with the confidence of a child who made weekly trips to her grandma’s house in the woods. Not too rushed and with steady movements, she moved throughout the deadliest forest in the kingdom with barely a scratch. Yet the wolf, eager for blood, ploughed into the thorns, tearing and snarling at the girl. Snapping those jaws and roaring in rage. The girl went on ignoring the chaos bearing down upon her. She was home again, running through the forest on to Grandma’s with a basket full of good things. There was no asylum, no wolf, just the forest, warm and friendly, the smell of pine filling her lungs. She was almost skipping when her breath failed and she came to exhaustion, unable to run any more. Her arms were a criss-cross of thorn scratches and a sliver of blood ran down her cheek, her red hood shredded.

  But what of the wolf? Eventually, retracing her steps, she found the beast. Or what was left of it. The wolf had gone and the man remained, bleeding and caught in the thorns. He hung there, pierced and stuck like a roast hog, unable to move, unable to cry for help, a sad, sad thing that deserved no pity. His eye looked at Red Riding Hood again for one last time before he died. She felt nothing.

  Mostly Contented Ever AfterThere once was a young girl who visited her grandma in the woods. But when she arrived, she found her grandma had been murdered by a wolf that could talk like a man. When she returned to her village they blamed her and thought the story of the wolf was the product of madness. So she was sent to the asylum. The girl was horribly treated but with the help of her friends she survived and was able to defeat the wolf that had haunted her. Eventually after a long journey she made her way back to her grandma’s house where she lived in the woods for the rest of her days.

  Maybe not happily, but mostly contented ever after.

  The End

  THE GRUESOME ADVENTURES OF ALICE IN UNDEADLAND

  Chapter One

  For most of her short life Alice had lived in an orphanage after her parents had succumbed to cholera. It was an unhappy place run by a cruel and crone-like mistress who wore ill-fitting black lace over old pale skin the colour of tripe. Her wrinkled face was coated in a thick powder and globs of red lipstick. She closely resembled an undernourished vampire... The mistress would dream up unusual and impossible chores for the children to undertake. Her favourite was having the orphans knit spider webs into scarves.

  The trick was to catch the spiders first, a task not suited to children. The spiders were vicious and as Alice and the other orphans entered the dust-covered arachnid room the spiders would descend, biting, pinching, crawling in the girls’ hair, ears, under their rags and over their skin.

  “Help me, Alice,” screeched Dinah, one of the smallest and youngest orphans, who Alice shared a close bond with. Being barely six years old, Dinah found life particularly hard in the orphanage and Alice had helped her through the trials of being there.

  Alice shielded Dinah under her arms and sat her down. Around them other girls were in floods of tears and panic.

  “Don’t fret, Dinah.” Alice smiled and held her hand; a fat, juicy spider climbed over tiny fingers trailing webs and spots of blood where the spider bit.

  “Think of nicer days,” Alice explained. “I think of my parents and seeing their smiles.”

  When the young ladies of “Miss Scrim’s Orphanage for Burdens” were unable to complete their tasks, the mistress created even more unusual punishments. Such as standing for hours — bare footed — in the leech bowl.

  Miss Scrim had the girls in a line as she paraded in front of them.

  “You,” creaked the mistress, pointing a finger that was more bone than anything towards the tiny Dinah. The other orphans sighed with a mixture of relief and terror at what was happening and what would happen next.

  “You didn’t work as hard as you should. You must earn your keep if I am to keep a roof over your miserable head.”

  “Please, miss,” she whimpered.

  “To the leeches with you,” Miss Scrim hissed.

  Dinah took a shuddering step forward before Alice caught her shoulder.

  “Mistress.” Alice spoke. “It was I who didn’
t work hard. I am sorry — Dinah was helping me,” she lied.

  The mistress sneered and thought for a moment. “Then you feed my pets tonight,” she decided.

  Alice stood in front of the bowl at her feet; the bloated leeches squirmed in anticipation. Alice placed her feet in one after the other. The feeling of the slime-riddled creatures feeding between her toes was not unlike putting one’s feet in a bowl of jelly laced with sewing needles. Once again Alice thought of her parents and let her mind wander to their arms.

  Toys were prohibited at the orphanage; playtime was time away from work time, considered Miss Scrim. So the children made do with what they could, making themselves teddy bears of coal or dolls from nettles, sticks and mud. The girls of the orphanage slept in the damp and infested cellar. While in the lodgings above, Miss Scrim rented the rooms to unsavoury characters, leaving the orphans to huddle together in the dark. They slept amongst scraps with always one eye to the shadowy corners. Things of many limbs, things of many eyes crawled in those corners. There were stories of children sinking into the shadows. Upon the stone floor tiny nail marks were dragged and etched along.

  “Where is Dinah?” Alice asked one evening. She had not seen her all day.

  There was a moment’s silence before the reply came.

  “Mistress sold her to a chimney sweep. Except…”

  “Except what?” Alice asked.

  “Except I saw the sweep come back demanding his money. He was mad at Dinah. He said she ruined a toff’s chimney with her corpse.”

  So it was that sometime after her uncelebrated thirteenth birthday Alice decided to jump into the River Thames and forever end her misery. To that end, one freezing night Alice climbed from the cellar’s small window and made her way through gaslit cobbled streets to Tower Bridge. Horrible black steaming creatures snorted, pulling carriages as she passed by. No one paid her attention, except to sneer or stare with an unhealthy purpose. There were plenty of children on London’s streets and so another urchin in the night was paid little heed. She kept to the dark shades of London and her head to the street. Eventually after the dark walk through London’s slums, Alice stood on the bridge staring into the water. The wind was cutting and blew her long blonde hair with the sharpest of strokes. Alice looked out from the bridge; London was lit by a thousand dull lights. It reminded Alice of a demented beast.

  To calm her nerves she sang a song under its gaze:

  ‘I often wondered what it would be like to die,

  To jump into the river and sink deep inside,

  Drink in the water and fill my lungs a while,

  Floating along with a contented dead smile.

  Did the dead sleep for ever so they could dream?

  How I would dream such things, floating in that stream.’

  Alice closed her eyes to the world, held her hands out and felt the edge of the bridge beneath her feet. She thought of her parents and how they had all loved each other. She thought of the orphanage and how love avoided the place. She wondered how much loss and heartbreak she could endure, was there ever to be an end. Her short life had been hard and tinged with sadness; however she had the comfort in memories of her parents. There were children living amongst the gutters who had never known their own parents at all. Yet here she was, still managing to live when others had not been so fortunate. There was something in those thoughts that calmed her and suddenly, with determination, she knew not to let adversity define her. She never had and even now at her lowest moment, she would not.

  Feeling foolish at her plan, Alice began to climb from the edge of the bridge when a policeman, seeing the danger, ran towards her calling out, “Girl, girl, get down!” Alice, startled, turned to explain before slipping and plunging like a dead seagull into the waiting water. The frozen cold took her breath and the water rushed into the gap left in her lungs. She was welcomed to the oppressive water as her dress became as heavy as lead. Although Alice had no longer the intention of drowning, she did anyway.

  Chapter Two

  Alice found death to be quite troublesome. So she decided not to do it any more. When she opened her eyes again, she found the stars staring back at her. Was this the afterlife? If so it had dampness to it. Alice realised she had been carried by the water and abandoned upon the muddy riverbank. Soaking wet and covered in thick mud, Alice lay in the silt and pondered. She should have been panicked at her ordeal but Alice was no longer breathing. Her chest simply refused to gasp for air. Water dripped from her mouth as if she were an overflowing cup of tea. A way along the river she could see the distant silhouette of Tower Bridge. There were police whistles demanding attention. The lights of London’s eyes continued to watch her from all around the Thames.

  It was then she noticed the rabbit sitting on her chest. The rabbit was dirty, white and tatty. A wretched thing with broken ears and a missing left eye. Curiously its mouth was covered by a surgeon’s mask. Confused by this, Alice noticed the rabbit’s paws. In one it held a blooded scalpel, in its other a human heart, still dripping. She held her hand to where her terrified heart should have been pumping; except it was now an empty wound.

  The rabbit placed her heart into a tiny knapsack tied around its waist. It leapt from Alice and over to a sewer pipe jutting from the bank, spilling London’s filth into the river. Underneath, the rabbit was covered in muck, crawling and struggling upwards. As it made its way to the pipe the spilling sewage washed it back down into the mud.

  “That’s my heart,” shouted Alice as she waddled over, heavy and sloshing with water.

  She managed to pick the rabbit up in both hands; it looked like a stuffed toy, yet had the feel of bone wrapped in wet rags. The rabbit immediately screeched a horrible sound when Alice lifted it from the mud. It tore away its mask and sank sharp teeth deep into Alice’s left hand. There was no pain but Alice shook the creature this way and that. The rabbit refused to let go, so she had no choice but to smash its head against the pipe. The rabbit spun from Alice’s hand and disappeared into the darkness of the sewer.

  “Well, I never,” gasped Alice. She held her bitten hand to her eyes.

  Two fingers were now missing. Strange, thought Alice, as to why there was no blood. The skin and stumps were a pale greenish. She tore a piece of material from her dress and wrapped the makeshift bandage over her wound.

  Alice’s mother had always taught her to keep her most precious emotions in her heart. Alice remembered her mother holding and stroking her hair. She ran her finger over her chest bone, making the shape of a love heart. Having the organ stolen was akin to having the love she held for her departed parents taken away. Alice searched herself for any feelings, only to find she had none. Death had hollowed her. This would not do at all; Alice had no choice but to follow the rabbit.

  The rusted pipe, although tiny in comparison to Alice, would still be able to accommodate her if she crawled on her stomach. She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the dark and her nose to the stench before using the bank to climb into the pipe. There was a lining of soft debris and a kind of slime not unlike that of slugs, so Alice slid along at a pace.

  This isn’t so dreadful, thought Alice.

  The running water washed away most of the mud and the rats that ran along seemed friendly enough, only occasionally stopping to nibble at her legs. However the rabbit was nowhere to be seen, but Alice could hear screeching further along. She believed herself to be getting closer to her quarry when all of a sudden the pipe took an impossibly sharp dip, sending Alice sliding down, sprawling.

  CARINA™

  ISBN: 978 1 472 08397 5

  The Asylum for Fairy Tale Creatures

  Copyright © 2014 Sebastian Brown

  Published in Great Britain (2014)

  by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S
.A.

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  ScreamQueen