Page 12 of How To Survive This Fairytale
“I see why they call you the Fair Queen,” you say, “for your heart is full of kindness.Would you allow me to take my meal outside, and share this feast with the birds?They suffer the famine, too.”
Some at the table titter at your request.Dukes with greased mustaches, and countesses with hearts painted on their cheeks.But the Fair Queen, with her eyes of emerald, does not laugh.
“My heart may be fair,” she says, “but only the heart of a child could be so selfless.How dare any of you mock such a display of charity.Are we not a court of progress?Are we not the future?”
With her courtiers chastened into silence, the Fair Queen stands.She raises her glass to you.
“Go,” she says.“My future huntsman, I commend you for remembering those who are so often forgotten.I commend you for thinking kindly of the creatures whose lives you will one day be duty-bound to end.”
* * *
Outside, in the royal gardens, you sit on the ground and hold your head in your hands.Your plate, still untouched, sits on the ground beside you, and you don’t care if ants and moths should flock to it.A feast like that… Your father abandoned you to the woods, youandGretel, because there wasn’t enough to eat.Easier to get rid of you than to feed you; more food for him, if he didn’t have to share it with his children.
You grab fistfuls of your hair and pull.
Fair.What fairness is there to any of this?Gretel should be alive.You should be with her.You should be with Gretel and Gertrude and Favorite and the other five swans, all of you together, with plenty to eat.Instead, you’re here: a brother with no sister, severed from two families, the captive of a vain queen who will never let you go.
Before you can begin to cry, a dog whines at your side.
A bloodhound, with big sad eyes and jowls that droop alongside her ears.
“Where did you come from?”you ask.The hound doesn’t answer, but whines again, looking at you with palpable longing.Her ribs look ready to break through her muddy-black fur.
“You hungry?”You offer her the pheasant.“Go on.I won’t eat it.Someone should.”
The hound eats from your hand as if she’s never eaten before.You pet one hand down her side, over each knob of vertebrae.“You don’t belong to anyone, do you?”you ask.“Did someone abandon you?Someone abandoned me, too.”
When the hound finishes eating, she lays her head in your lap.“I’ll say I’m training you to help me hunt,” you whisper, as though it were a secret.“Maybe she’ll let me keep you.”
* * *
Come morning, the queen’s stone-eyed huntsman, on the cusp of his retirement, brings you into the town market.He’s a broad, bald man, with a salted beard and biceps larger than your head.He only speaks to the store clerks to inquire about prices, and only speaks to you to explain the differences between two guns.
Sometimes he offers you the most apologetic glance—like there’s something he can’t explain to you, and he’s sorry about not being able to explain it, and sorry that it’s happening—and then, not understanding the life he’s lived, not yet realizing all the ways you’ll follow in his footsteps, you decide it must be pity.You pity yourself too.You’d have pitied yourself for even longer last night if the bloodhound hadn’t curled up beside you and slept with her head on your empty belly.You’ve taken to calling her Friend.
“Here,” says the huntsman, putting coins in your palm.“Buy something to make your life bearable.”
The way he says it nags you with guilt, and you’d like to give him the money back, but he disappears into a tavern.Through the crusted window, you watch him take a seat at the bar.He’s only telling you to do what he does for himself.
The first thing you buy is a collar for Friend.The second is a leash.
There’s one more thing that would make your life bearable, though you don’t know whether it exists.
The local apothecary assures you that it does.“And it’s not magic?”you ask.
“Not magic at all,” she says, “but why would you want such a thing?It’s amiserabletonic, I promise you that.”
“I think it could fix something for me,” you say.“I’ll pay you everything I have.”
She scrutinizes you for your desperation.In a horrible moment of silence, she raises a bushy, snow-white brow, then turns from you and shakes her head.
“Please,” you say.“I need it.”
Still shaking her head, she retrieves a mortar and pestle and an empty vial.Her frown lines deepen as she prepares the mixture; occasionally she glances at you with uncertainty in her eyes.At any moment, you half expect her to say something likeNo, never mind, I won’t do this, or maybe something likeAre you in danger, child?Do you need help?
But she says nothing.You thought, in a town full of people,someonemight recognize the danger you’re in.Maybe they do.If they do, they must have their own reasons for not stepping in to save you.
(Which they do, of course.Their reason is simple: they have their stories, and you have yours.Those stories may intersect, but none of you are meant to change one another’s charted course.In fact, your story depends upon other people’s silence.Your story depends upon no one stopping it from happening.A sad fact, perhaps, but that is how the story goes, and nothing can be done to change it.)