Page 1 of How To Survive This Fairytale

A Prologue

A father leadshis children into the woods and leaves them there.

1.

FIRST, YOU HAVE TO WANT TO LIVE.

Which you do,more than anything else.Why else the pebbles?Why else the bread crumbs?

Here’s the thing: you can lie down and die at any time.When you and your sister are abandoned in the woods, with no way home, and no one at home who wants you, you can surrender and sink into the sleep that has no end.

But you don’t.

No: you take your sister’s hand and you wander through the labyrinthine wood until your feet blister and your bearings blur.Even then, you’re not ready to die.

And when the wolf comes?

When the wolf comes, with its fur drawn tight over its bones, with its visible ribs a mirror of your own withered body, you can submit to the mercy of its slavering maw: youandyour sister.You can let it end for the both of you, but you don’t.

Instead, crushing your sister’s hand in yours, you run, even though you’re certain you can’t outrun a wolf, even though you no longer have the strength to sail through the underbrush, even though the low-hanging branches of the trees try to snatch you in their snaring embrace.Despite it all—despite soiling yourself in fear, despite Gretel’s endless tears—you run and keep running.

Why keep running?

Why resist, when the ending seems inevitable?

Why eat of the house made of spun sugar and gingerbread?

Because you have one glorious, wretched life, and for whatever reason, you’ll hold onto it until giants grind your bones to make their bread.

Remember this when it gets harder.Because it only gets harder from here.

2.

IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, YOU HAVE TO BE CLEVER.

You tradedone danger for another: a wolf for a witch.You couldn’t have known the house was a trap.

But now you do.

Locked in a child-sized cage in a corner of the witch’s kitchen, you know so much more about this world than you’re ready to know.Wolves and witches—one you could outrun, but the second has you where she wants you, and if you want to avoid joining the bones that litter the bottom of your cage, you’re going to have tothink.

Your only idea is to refuse the meals Gretel brings you.And you try that, at first.You try with all your might to resist each warm loaf of bread, each sliced apple served with nuts, each hunk of roasted meat…

… and even though you know the witch is fattening you up for the table…

… even though youknowyou should be wary of the meat…

… you tumble mouth-first into each plate, entranced.

“Hansel, don’t,” Gretel whispers in the dark, her voice thin and shaking.“Don’t eat it.Every bite only makes you want more.”

But you can’t hear her.Not really.

“There’s enough for us to share,” you say, and offer her a deep spoonful of rich, hearty stew.“We’ve never had food like this in our lives.Not ever.”

She refuses you three times a day, every day, for a week.

And then the witch comes.