Fractured Fairy Tales: A SaSS Anthology

by Amy Marie

  A few hours later, the only thing I was looking forward to was my lunch break. The little ones, adorable as could be, were like tiny tornadoes. I’d reset shelves and displays in between classes three times before giving up. I made a mental note to create some rules that included cleaning up after themselves. Little kids loved to have jobs, I hoped.

  Kindergarten ate lunch in the cafeteria at 10:30, and since I wasn’t expecting students from any other grades, I took advantage of that opportunity to eat my lunch. There was a teachers’ lounge near the main office, but I wasn’t feeling very social. I needed time to decompress, and there was no better place to do that than a quiet library.

  I took the brown paper sack out of my tote bag and carried it to the back corner of the library where the biographies were located. When I’d been a student at Marchen Elementary, the nonfiction section was always the quietest. I’d often taken my favorite storybook to that corner and gotten lost in the tales.

  I sat down on the worn carpet, my legs stretched out in front of me, and began unpacking my lunch bag. Once I had everything laid out, I started picking at my food and thinking about my morning. It was wild, but the joy on those little faces when they saw their favorite character on a book cover was unforgettable.

  A giggle had me looking up from my makeshift picnic. Standing at the end of the row was a small, brown haired little girl. She looked too big to be a kindergartener, but I could have been wrong.

  “Well, hello there,” I called over to her. She giggled again, then she shushed me. I smiled, tucking my legs beside me so I could get to my feet gracefully. “I think I’m the one who is supposed to say that,” I said, walking down the aisle. “I’m the librarian.”

  Her wide eyes looked up at me as I approached. “You look like a princess,” she said. “Rapunzel.”

  “And you are incredibly sweet to say so,” I told her, feeling the weight of my long hair on my back. It must have come loose from its bun in all my shuffling around this morning. When I reached the end of the aisle, I noticed there was no one else with the little girl. “Where’s your class, hon?”

  She frowned. “Ms. Murphy sent me down.”

  I fought the urge to frown with her. Ms. Murphy had been teaching third grade when I was in elementary school. The woman was nasty when I had her, I could only imagine how she was twenty years later.

  I bent my knees, lowering myself to my new friend’s level--because, let’s face it, if she thought I look like a princess then she was definitely my friend.

  “Do you need help finding a book?” I asked.

  Still frowning, she said “My dad forgot to put my book in my backpack this morning.”

  “Oh no,” I said, making a sad face and being sure to stick my lower lip out in an exaggerated pout of solidarity. “Silly daddy. Do you have a new book in mind, or did you want to see if we have the same book?”

  Her dark eyes lit up. “Let’s see if you have the same book!”

  I laughed, enjoying her enthusiasm. That was why I wanted to be a school librarian. I loved the energy that rolled off of kids who were excited about books and reading.

  “What’s the name of the book?”

  She rattled off the title and then began telling me about the book. I walked around the front desk and began typing the title into the search field on the computer.

  “Looks like we have what you’re looking for,” I told her, and her eyes sparkled. “Come with me.” I led her to the appropriate area of the library, explaining to her how she could find books using the computer.

  “I think my class is coming to the library on Thursdays,” she said. “Most of the kids probably already know their way around the library but I’m brand new.”

  I lowered myself to her level again and smiled. “Do you want to know a secret?” I asked. She grinned and nodded. “I’m brand new, too. Today is my first day.”

  Her eyes widened. “It’s my first day, too.”

  I stuck out my pinky and she wrapped hers around it. “Then I guess we’ll just have to look out for each other, won’t we?”

  She nodded, her expression very serious. “Will you be my friend? I haven’t made any yet.”

  “I would love to be your friend. Now let’s get you all checked out and back to your class.” We returned to the front desk and I went behind the counter to the computer. “What’s your name?”

  “Abigail Bell.”

  I froze for a moment, but only for a moment. There was no way she could be related to J.T. Bell. That would have been too crazy of a coincidence. I eyed the little girl as I typed her name in the computer and scanned the book. Her hair was darker than J.T.’s had been, and her eyes were lighter. Bell was a common enough last name, right? An awful coincidence for there to be a different Bell family in Marchen, though. Did J.T. have a brother? I didn’t remember one.

  “Here you go, Abigail.”

  “My friends call me Abby,” she said, taking the book from me.

  “It was nice to meet you, Abby. I’ll see you on Thursday.” I winked and she winked back, seemingly thrilled to be part of a little secret.

  I watched her as she walked to the squeaky swinging doors of the library. She turned and waved at me once more before pushing her way through.

  What a sweet kid, I thought as the doors swung shut behind her. Could she be J.T.’s daughter? Abby had said she was new...was it possible that J.T. and I had both returned to Marchen at the same time? My mind was running away from me. There was a myriad of possibilities, and J.T.’s involvement was only one of them. I was only fixated on him because I’d had the dream. That was all.

  “Knock, knock!” a woman said, pushing through the doors with an impressively straight line of tiny humans behind her.

  I focused on the present and greeted the new class of kindergarteners and their teacher.

  Chapter 2

  Jonah

  “How was school?” I asked Abby as she met me in a grassy area outside the school. The parent pick-up spot was by a large oak tree on the side of the elementary school campus.

  “It was okay,” she said, not looking at me.

  She’d gotten her attitude from her mother and was still mad at me for moving us away from her friends and back to my hometown, emphasis on the “my.” She had way too much attitude for an eight-year-old, and with every day that passed, I resented Allison a little more for leaving us. Then I felt horribly guilty for even thinking that. Allison hadn’t wanted to go, even though she’d been more than ready when the time came.

  “Just okay?” I asked, hoping to get a little more out of her.

  She just shrugged, shuffling her feet and looking around. There was an assortment of mothers and fathers greeting their kids in the parent pick-up area, and I noticed Abby’s gaze stay on the mothers a little longer.

  I ran my hand over my hair in frustration. I had a lot I still needed to learn. I didn’t know how to be a dad and a mom. Maybe that was something my mom could teach me now that I was back home. Allison had been great at the whole mom thing. She knew the right way to kiss boo-boos and how to make the best peanut butter and fluff sandwiches. I didn’t even know what fluff was until my eight-year-old told me. Forget the boo-boos. Abby’s first little scrape after Allison passed resulted in her crying herself to sleep because I couldn’t console her. I’d felt like shit that night, camped out on her bedroom floor, unable to make it better because I couldn’t bring her mom back. Every day got a little better, but there were still moments when I felt like an epic failure. I supposed there always would be.

  “How about we go out to dinner tonight to celebrate the end of the first day of school?” No response. “We can have ice cream for dessert.”

  Abby looked up. “Can I get a strawberry milkshake?”

  “You can have whatever you want,” I said, promising myself I would not make it a habit to spoil my child.

  “Okay,” she said. Then she took my hand and began to walk, and I wondered...had I just been had?

&n
bsp; “I would like the grilled cheese and some french fries,” Abby ordered.

  Our waitress, a tall, skinny redhead with a name tag that read “Becky,” smiled at Abby as she wrote her order down. “Sure thing.” I was sure she was related to an old classmate of mine, James Howard, who had also been tall and skinny and had equally red hair. I thought I remembered he’d had a younger sister. There wasn’t much change in a small town like Marchen, so I didn’t imagine there were too many new people.

  “How about some veggies, Abs?” My daughter glared at me. “Grilled cheese and french fries it is,” I said. Allison had her ways of getting Abby to eat vegetables. Add that to the list of things I’d need to learn to do. “I’ll have the meatloaf special,” I told Becky.

  “I’ll have those right out,” Becky said, stepping away from the table.

  We sat across from each other at a large booth in the Marchen Diner. She went straight to her room after school and didn’t come out until I called her for dinner. She was eight going on eighteen and I was in more trouble than I wanted to admit. My job as a data analyst allowed me to work from home so I could have flexible hours and be there for Abby, whether she wanted me there or not--often it was the latter.

  “Do you want to tell me more about school?” I asked Abby.

  She twisted her lips, something her mother always did when she was thinking about something. “You forgot my book.”

  Ah-ha. That was probably why she was mad at me. I saw her book on her nightstand when I went to take her laundry basket to be washed and wondered if she’d needed that.

  “The book you left on your nightstand?” I asked. Her eyes narrowed at me, but I didn’t give in. I had to put my foot down sometime. Abby had always liked having responsibilities, so I thought that was a good angle. “Hasn’t it always been your responsibility to pack your backpack?”

  She sighed. Jesus. Eight going on eighteen for sure. “Yes,” she finally said.

  “So who really forgot your book?”

  “I did,” she said, and the words sounded like they weighed two hundred pounds as they left her little mouth.

  “Did you get in trouble in class?”

  She shrugged. “Mrs. Murphy sent me to the library.”

  Mrs. Murphy. The woman was ancient when I was in elementary school. I couldn’t believe it when I saw her name on Abby’s registration forms. Marchen Elementary had two third grade classes now, versus the one when I was Abby’s age. It was just my luck my daughter would have the same teacher as me. I just couldn’t believe Mrs. Murphy was still teaching.

  “Did the library have the book?”

  My little girl’s eyes lit up and my heart warmed, her eyes hadn’t lit up like that enough in the last four years.

  “The librarian looks like a princess. She has really long hair like Rapunzel. She’s really nice, too. Today was her first day of school, too.” Abby frowned. “That was supposed to be a secret. Don’t tell her I told you, okay?”

  I doubted I would be meeting the school librarian, so I figured that was a secret I could keep. “Deal. I’m glad she was nice to you.”

  “She was so nice and so pretty.” She sipped her chocolate milk through the straw then her eyes widened. “There she is, Daddy!”

  I looked in the direction Abby was pointing and saw a woman walk in the diner. She looked to be about my age and “pretty” didn’t quite describe her. She was beautiful. Her blonde hair was twisted into a messy bun on top of her head and she wore gray leggings and a dark green sweater. She was smiling at something the hostess was saying, then she was grinning down at a little girl...at my little girl.

  I stupidly glanced across the table where my daughter had been sitting, knowing the spot would be empty because my daughter was talking to the beautiful stranger by the door.

  I got up from the booth and met them at the front of the diner. “I’m sorry, it seems my daughter is quite taken by the new librarian who looks a lot like Rapunzel.”

  The librarian looked up at me from where she was kneeling in front of Abby and when her eyes locked on mine, she seemed to freeze in place. She stood abruptly and looked towards a booth along the wall where a woman sat wearing a similar outfit but with a knit cap over her head. Odd, since the weather hadn’t yet turned cold in our southern town.

  “It was good to see you, Abby. I’ll see you on Thursday.” She smiled politely at my daughter, but it was not nearly as bright as it had been before I joined them. She hurried away, sparing me no second glance, and Abby and I were left standing alone at the door.

  “Was it something I said?” I asked.

  Abby sighed, then returned to the table.

  I sighed, too, then followed her.

  Chapter 3

  Grace

  Thursday came entirely too soon, and Mrs. Murphy’s class was due to walk through the library doors any minute. I was terrified at the arrival one student.

  Abigail Bell’s father was J.T. Bell. The most attractive guy I’d ever known growing up and one of them. He’d deceived me so well in high school. Acting kind and oblivious to the bullying. Boy had I been wrong. He looked different now, older obviously, with a beard and long dark blonde hair. He looked like a lumberjack. A sexy lumberjack. When my eyes met his at the diner, I thought I’d drop dead then and there. I felt all the mortification I’d felt at senior prom. I’d wanted to go straight home, but my mom was having a good day, and I didn’t want to spoil that for her. It didn’t seem like J.T. knew who I was; how could he considering I could no longer be recognized as the girl voted most unique in our senior class? I pulled a protective bubble over my table at the diner and stayed inside it. I didn’t look their way. I didn’t even look at the server when I ordered. I’d been so rude, but I had entered self-preservation mode, and I wasn’t very thoughtful of others when I was in it.

  I knew it was bound to happen, though. I wouldn’t be able to sneak around our small town without anyone knowing I was there for long. I was certain the Marchen gossip chain had shared my arrival when I’d driven into town trailing a small U-Haul behind my car. I wondered why I hadn’t heard anything about J.T. though. Regardless, I was sure I’d run into other classmates from Marchen High eventually.

  The library doors swung open, and Mrs. Murphy walked in, her class following behind.

  “Grace,” she said, acknowledging me. I wasn’t sure if she’d been debriefed on the new librarian or if she recognized me. I wouldn’t put it past her to know who I was by sight. She was one of those older women in town who always seemed to know everything. She’d probably originated the Marchen gossip train. Why wouldn’t she know that I’d gotten plastic surgery? Most of the school faculty knew about my surgery since I’d been homeschooled for the rest of my senior year because of it.

  “Mrs. Murphy,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Likewise,” she said, and I think she may have smiled, too, if that twitch at the side of her mouth was any indication. Could have just been a twitch, though.

  I went through an abbreviated version of my library orientation since most of these students had already been through a more comprehensive orientation in earlier grades. The class split up and disappeared into the stacks to find their books. Abby stayed by me, holding the book she’d checked out on Monday and looking sad.

  “Hi, Abby,” I said, approaching her. “Is everything okay? Do you need help finding something?” She shook her head, and I wasn’t sure which question she was responding to. I kneeled in front of her and looked into her big brown eyes. “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

  “I already checked out a book this week so I can’t pick a new one. Mrs. Murphy said so.”

  That witch.

  I frowned. “I’m sorry, Abby. Is that your class rule?”

  She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. I wanted to break that class rule for her, but I knew better than to undermine a teacher my first week of school, particularly one that had tenure and was probably as old as the school itself.


  “There’s a really neat library in the next town over. Maybe this weekend your Mom and Dad can take you there to check out a few books.”

  Two big tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Shit.

  What did I say?

  “My Mom is in heaven. Do they ha-have libraries in heaven?”

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I carefully thought about how to reply. “I think heaven has a huge library. I bet your Mom can read any book she wants, when she’s not looking down on you.”

  Abby wiped her tears away with small fists, her expression turning hopeful. “You think so?”

  “I know so,” I said, nodding. “It’s one of the first things we learn in librarian school.”

  Abby smiled and hugged the book she was holding against her chest. “I remembered my book from home, so I can return this one.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, winking at her. “You can hold on to it to read it while you’re here. You can give it back to me before you go.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Thank you, Princess Librarian,” she giggled.

  “You can call me Miss Adams.”

  “I like Princess Librarian better.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Do you know anything about J.T. Bell?” I asked my mom.

  She tilted her head to the side. “The name sounds familiar, but I’m not entirely sure why.”

  The chemotherapy Mom was receiving to treat her breast cancer was doing its job, but it was wreaking havoc on her memory and thought processing. Sometimes she would forget something she’d known her whole life and other times she couldn’t complete a sentence. The next minute she was just as witty as she’d always been. It was a wild ride.

  “He’s just someone I went to high school with.” I said, trying to downplay my curiosity.

  “Jonah!” Mom said, causing me to jump. I nearly cut the tip of my finger off instead of the carrot I’d been chopping for tonight’s beef stew. Mom was craving it, and she doesn’t crave much so I’m all about indulging her.