Fairy Tales For Sale

by Rosamunde Lee

  Rose gazed at him warmly.

  “Yes, well. . .” Duncan said, getting up because he had never been called a hero before, because he was so happy she was with him and because his emotions were flaring up and his skin was starting to spark.

  “You remember when you asked me if I was a princess?” Rose cried after him, her hands going to her blushing cheeks. Again she imitated his voice. “‘I won’t have a princess as my maid. I want someone who is going to stay. Not someone with a destiny. I just want a maid.’” She laughed again. “To think anyone would think I was a princess! Little old nobody me.”

  “Goodnight,” he said, climbing into the oven and closing the door. He did not dare to look back because he was afraid he might tell her how mistaken they both had been. She wasn’t a princess at all but in fact the queen of his heart.

  The next day he bought her a black foal which she said was the spitting image of Falada. But unaccountably, she called him Duncan. Duncan gruffly denied any paternity to his churlish customers, but he smiled when he saw Rose doting on his namesake. Duncan also gave a prince’s ransom to those less fortunate than he, but he didn’t tell anything about that to anyone, not even Rose. And so things went with them. Duncan had his Rose and she had her Duncan, and life was good.

  And then a month after Duncan’s parents had died, his brother announced that he wanted to get married and a ball was scheduled. Duncan questioned Rose about it. He asked her if she wanted to go, teased her cruelly about her leaving him, tested her and quizzed her night and day because his fear of losing her burned him worse than the fire in his skin. But Rose showed no interest.

  And then the fairy godmother showed up. Duncan should have throttled her then instead of slamming the door in her face. He and Rose had just finished supper, and Rose was dousing his red hot dishes in the sink when someone knocked at the door. It was a preposterous hour, so Duncan got up to answer it. He wanted whatever brigands that had come to see him first. He swung open the door with a fierce scowl only to be nearly knocked back by the overwhelming smell of cheap perfume. His eyes were blinded by glitter and what must have been fairy dust. His heart turned to ice in that moment because he knew that fairy godmothers came only for beautiful young girls. So, he slammed the door.

  But she didn’t go away. Duncan told Rose to go her room immediately.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried, alarmed either by his tone or the more than usually tragic mask he wore for a face. He wanted to grab her and drag her upstairs and lock her in her room.

  “Just go to your room!” he shouted.

  “Yes, sir,” she squeaked, curtsied and ran. She had run from him. He felt terrible. He felt horrible. He felt like a monster. He wanted to explain, but there was no time. He followed her up and locked her in for the first time.

  But that did not stop the fairy. Somehow she got into Rose’s room. Duncan heard the girl cry out in surprise. He ran upstairs to unlock the door, but the bolt held. He shouted and banged on the door like a madman, but he couldn’t stop the fairy. He heard her talking to Rose about destiny, and how it was her fate to be a queen and to rule the Kingdom with a kind heart and all that nonsense.

  “Don’t listen to her!” Duncan shouted. He ran downstairs to get the big iron hammer from the corner of his shop when Rose opened her door and ran into the kitchen crying. She saw him and just barely stopped short of throwing herself into his arms.

  “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you. I don’t know what to do,” she cried.

  And then before he could find the words to stop her that glistening hag floated into the room after her.

  “You have to get dressed. That is what you have to do,” she sung, waving her wand. And his Rose turned into a queen right before his eyes. She had always been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life, but now she was beyond imagining. He felt like dropping to his knees and begging her to stay with him. But he what good would that do? He was a monster. He could never deserve her or happiness. He just stepped aside, his tongue burning in his mouth, his heart yelling for him to say something, do something, stop her somehow. The fairy godmother led Rose out to the waiting carriage. He watched as it drove away with Rose’s bewildered face pressed against the window. The horse Duncan, the one he had given her, his namesake, was pulling the carriage, prancing all the way. The traitor.

  Duncan walked back inside his house like a stranger after following Rose out like a dog.

  “Well, that’s done,” the fairy godmother said, walking through the open door and clapping her hands in a final manner. She sat down in Duncan’s chair and put up her feet. “I always get so hungry after such work. It’s so nerve-wracking.”

  She swung her wand with a careless gesture and made a feast for herself. She turned her back on Duncan and began eating. With a full mouth, she asked him if he’d like to join her.

  “It was just starting to get better,” Duncan said to the fairy godmother. “And then you had to show up.”

  Duncan had never felt so much despair and darkness inside him in his life. He had nothing left, no reason to live, to try to be anything more than a monster. He moved closer to the fairy, his hands outstretched, his fingers reaching. If the fairy died, Rose would be his again. The carriage would suddenly disappear and her clothes, leaving in the middle of the road with only her horse beside her. She would be right back where she started. Alone with a horse on a road.

  At that moment Duncan knew he couldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t. Better for her to get married to his stupid brother and have everything he could never give her, like kisses, hugs, or a back rub. Duncan dropped his hands, walked away from the fairy. He accepted his fate.

  “Get out,” was all he said, before he sat down on the stone floor, facing the wall. He felt something starting inside him like a gale. It took over his lungs first, tightening in his chest, and moved up to his throat. It came out of his mouth as a sound, but his mouth could not express his loneliness, his emptiness, his regret, his pain. He felt as if he were being torn in half. He felt like dying. He covered his face as the sobs began to wrack him. As a prince, as a would-be-hero, he had never allowed himself to cry before. But now with all his pretensions stripped away, his tears sizzled like a steady rain against the floor.

  “You know I came here for you,” the fairy godmother informed him after he had wept for a few hours. Duncan had forgotten she was there, “but you closed the door in my face. Look at me now.”

  Duncan felt a rough hand on his cheek forcing his head up, and he saw the white dragon coiled delicately before him. He shouted and tried to get away.

  “Now you’re afraid of me?” she asked.

  “How?”

  “Only magic can kill magic.”

  “Then why?” he asked, thinking about those five terrible years of torture when he hadn’t even killed her.

  “There were things you had to learn about being a man. Your father sent you out to learn them. I felt obliged to help. There was a lot you didn’t understand then, things you understand now.”

  “Like what?” Duncan fumed. “Pain? Misery? Loneliness? I know a lot about those things.”

  “Yes, and about others too. You learned about those less fortunate. You learned about what it takes to be a real man. When you rode up that hill to kill a dragon, you were so sure that death and force were the only ways to accomplish anything in life, but you learned otherwise, didn’t you?” she asked.

  Duncan lowered his head.

  “What did killing get you?” she asked him. “Only pain and misery. Is that what you wanted?”

  Duncan shook his head.

  “You princes make me sick sometimes,” the dragon said, putting her hands on her hips. “You have everything anyone could ever want, but it’s never enough. You have to take more. You’re never satisfied. But you will be, Duncan. You learned to live with less than anyone else around you and to be grateful for the things wealth cannot buy, like a kind
word, and an earnest emotion. Kill every dragon from here to hell, and you won’t find what really matters in their hordes of gold. Dragons and men are so much alike. That’s why men hate them so. Both of you gather wealth like misers and sit on it, never thinking to use it to bring beauty and happiness to your fellow creatures.”

  Duncan sighed, seeing suddenly the justice of everything that had been done to him. It was the bitterest moment of his life. “Haven’t I suffered enough?”

  “I don’t know. Have you? I mean, what would you have done if you were still a prince and had seen Rose like she was filthy and bedraggled wandering on the road?” The fairy asked, looking him in the eye.

  “I would have reined my horse away, so she wouldn’t have gotten it dirty,” he said truthfully.

  “You never would have met her and found out what a wonderful girl she is, Duncan. Think about that. Sure, you might have married some snooty princess who was your mirror image, selfish and foolish. She would have spent your money like water and given you a few kids and by the time you both died you still would have been absolute strangers, never having shared a true moment all your lives.

  “Then remember the old blacksmith who treated you like a son, the town that accepted you, and about Rose. You’ve whined about your circumstances for five years, but consider what a gift I have given you, what an opportunity.”

  Duncan looked up in shock at her words. The last five years a gift? Then he realized the truth. They had been an opportunity of a lifetime.

  The dragon turned back into a little old fairy godmother. She stretched and yawned. “Remember that when you are King.”

  She opened the door just as Duncan came trotting home. Rose ran out of the carriage.

  “It was terrible,” she cried. “He’s a pervert! Destiny or not, I’m never going back.”

  She was just about to rush upstairs when she saw Duncan. She blushed scarlet.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said, nodding shyly. She turned to the fairy. “Where is Duncan, the blacksmith?”

  “He missed you so much, he wept all night,” the fairy godmother told her. “He cried the fire out of his body. Look into his eyes, if you don’t believe me, but he’s your Duncan.”

  Duncan looked down at his arms and saw that they were flesh. He touched his face and felt skin. He turned around and opened a drawer, pulling out the only mirror he allowed in the house and saw himself for the first time in five years. The glass fell from his hands.

  “Oh god! Seven years of bad luck!” the fairy cried, freezing the mirror in mid-air.

  She waved her hand, and the mirror settled back in the drawer. “Go take her in your arms before anything else goes wrong! Hurry up!”

  Duncan took quick steps toward his Rose. Later that night, they rode to the castle where Duncan, with the help of the fairy, took the throne. Afterward, he and Rose were married and crowned King and Queen. And they lived happily for the most part until the end of their days.

  The Sword Trick

  When nothing is as it seems, can true love still conquer all?

  How many stinking rainstorms? How many gray clouds had passed by, bloated with empty promises? Evangeline glared at the low-hanging belly of the sky. She gritted her teeth when the first cold spatters hit her skin. She let them race down her cheeks like the tears she could not cry. When it started to come down in earnest, she straightened her back, focused on the distant razor line between heaven and earth. She raised her sword. It flashed like lightning as she swung the blade over her head, her wrist and arm gyrating, smooth like wool on a spindle.

  It rained on all sides, but not one drop could reach her through the spinning circle of steel. She swung hard and long, listening to the clean song of steel against air. She kept the storm at bay as long as her arm held, but finally she faltered. The sword flew away, cutting into the dead mud of some stranger’s plot a few feet away. She collapsed over her father’s grave.

  “I did it,” she cried. “I can do it! After sixteen years! I wanted you to see, so you would be proud of me!”

  Evangeline dug her fingers into the pebbly soil, as if she could reach him, touch him, and make him acknowledge her. Her hands came up empty and filthy, but the rain washed every trace of dirt from her skin. She covered her face.

  “You’ll catch your death.”

  An old monk had slipped up beside her. She blinked at his huge frame and hunched shoulders that fairly burst from his tattered robes.

  “You should never mourn in the rain,” he said and spat. “Too sad. You’ll get sick. Next thing you know you’ll be buried right next to him. Come into my house. I’ve soup and a fire.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to have soup,” Evangeline mumbled, getting up and fetching her sword. She would need it soon.

  “Where you from?” the old man asked.

  “Eldrica.”

  “Really?” he asked, looking intently at her.

  She could not see his face. Only the wire scruff on his chin was visible from under his cowl. His robes clung to him like a shroud and the stink carried past where she was standing. The rain shower was probably the first washing he or his clothing had had in a long time. She turned to go.

  “Did you know him?” the old man asked, poking a boot toe into the soil of grave.

  Evangeline sheathed her blade. “No...not really. He was my father.”

  “I thought so,” he smirked. “You got his eyes...emerald green like the jeweled hilt of his sword. There was never another like it. A lady gifted him with the emerald, and he forged the blade himself, perfect of balance, smooth and slender, yet sharp like a woman. It was a real beauty, just like you.”

  “You knew him well, did you?” she asked, folding her arms.

  “I knew him as well as you can know any man. He was a great swordsman once. I saw the trick you did with your weapon. Not bad. He could do it with either hand. I saw it with my own eyes once.”

  “The men in town said he was bum, a low-life drifter who got into a drunken brawl with some guy and got killed,” Evangeline confessed, wiping the rain from her cheeks.

  “Well, he wasn’t born a drifter. Nobody is....You know they shattered his wrists for rescuing a woman from a mob. They were going to burn her as a witch. He could barely lift a spoon after that. It broke his spirit, tainted his life till he became that man in the grave. Some people are like that--they let things hurt them so bad they never recover.”

  She stared at the mound, at the rain digging holes into it.

  “Do you know anything about the son of a dog who murdered him?” Evangeline asked, “They said he bragged that he was from Sobraleen.”

  “Yep, to the East. His name was...Roderick.”

  “You know what he looks like? Nobody could give me a description. Most of them were too drunk to talk. You could save me the trouble of killing every Roderick from here to Eternity if you do.”

  “You gonna avenge your father’s death?” he laughed, his scraggly jaws cracking as his lips parted to reveal a yellow smile. “Good for you.”

  “Yeah,” she snapped, wringing out her long, dark hair and twirling it into a bun. She tucked it under her coif, then pulled chain mail over it. Her face contorted suddenly, jaw bulging under her delicate skin. “Yeah, I’m going kill him, get the sword back. It’s my father’s only legacy.”

  “In that case, you’ll be needing this.” The old man fished a long time under his robe, then pulled out a small pencil portrait on an ancient piece of parchment. He shielded it from the rain with his hand. “He looked a lot like this. His eyes were blue, and he had a cleft in his chin.”

  Evangeline snatched the paper, looked it over. A young, very handsome man posed. She eyed the portrait a long while, then slowly handed it back.

  “No, keep it. It might come in handy,” the monk said.

  “Thanks. . .” she said blinking at him. “Hey, where did you get this anyway?”

  “Oh, you know, I’m a herm
it. I find a lot of stuff. So, you wouldn’t have any time for some soup, would you?”

  “No,” she said, frowning.

  “Maybe later then.” He walked off leaving her alone with her dead.

  Sobraleen was a nice little town. It opened before Evangeline like a flower as the jaws of the dark woods parted. It reminded her so much of home that she nearly dropped to her knees and wept over the cobblestones. Orange, red and yellow brick houses dotted the wide streets. Bright rugs and clothes hung from the little windows. The smell of baked bread and home-cooking wafted on the wind. The townspeople stood chatting happily in the streets.

  Exhausted, Evangeline stumbled forward. Getting revenge was harder than she could have ever imagined. She wasn’t the adventuring type. She had no real skills. She had been robbed three times on her way here. She’d been chased by a flaming dragon after admiring, then pocketing, a tiny chest full of gold and silver coins. But worst of all, she was forced to eat twelve meals with the Treetop Elves as she crossed their territory. All they ate was moss and mushrooms.

  A sudden homesickness overcame Evangeline, and she was overwhelmed by a desire to turn back, forget revenge, forget everything she knew about her father. What would they say in her village if they discovered what she was up to? Little Evangeline, the merchant’s granddaughter, now the cutthroat avenger. What was she doing here? She could just lie to her mother, say she never found the grave. It would be easier. It wasn’t like she owed her father anything.

  He hadn’t even been a real father to her. He was just some stranger buried in a grave, some hero who had swept her mother off her feet long ago. When a daughter had been born and not a son, he just rode off on a hunt one day and never returned.

  After a month, he wrote a letter explaining that he had been captured by some wizard of the wood. Like a dutiful wife, Evangeline’s mother had sent him a ransom. Then he wrote back explaining that on his way home he had been imprisoned by an evil knight, then an enchantress, then a foreign mogul. Ransom after ransom was paid until her family was nearly bankrupt. Finally, Evangeline’s grandfather had enough and wrote to the mogul assuring him that even if he made garters of his no-good son-in-law’s innards, he would see it only as a kindness never to be repaid. Her mother’s credulous heart broke and the letters stopped.