Page 2 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“Let us see if you’re ready,” she says.“Put a finger through the cage, boy.”

(A finger?Why a finger?Stop it.Don’t ask questions.The story needn’t make sense.This is simply how the story goes.)

You’ve had seven days to prepare for this.Seven days to shake off the haze of her bounty and think of a way out.You haven’t thought of a way out.You’ve thought only of your full belly—full, for the first time in years—and when your next meal will arrive.

What a strange thing, to be full and yet keep yearning for more.You hadn’t thought it strange until just this moment.You hadn’t given yourself time to think of anything butfood, and its endless, abundant, reliable delivery.

Frigid realization sloshes through you.You were supposed to think of a way out and you didn’t.You want to live and you’re not going to live.

You offer the witch your finger.She gropes it and cackles.“Gretel,darling,” she sneers, “prepare the cauldron.”

THAT CAN’T BE THE WAY THIS STORY ENDS.

Try Again?

“Let us see if you’re ready,” says the witch.“Put a finger through the cage, boy.”

You’ve had seven days to prepare for this, but the idea doesn’t strike you until the last possible moment.

Instead of offering the witch your finger, you stick a bone through the bars of your cage.You’re sorry for the children who’ve died before you, but grateful to them, too.All of them, and the one in particular whose bone you’re using to save your own life.

“What?How can this be?”the witch bellows.Her sightless eyes narrow.Her anger pulses through her with such strength you expect she’ll puff steam.Then she composes herself.

“You must have been skinnier than I thought,” she says, “if a week of good meals won’t stick to your bones.Very well, very well… Another week.”

* * *

Another and another and another.Four weeks pass and you’ve done little more than buy yourself time.

“I’ve been eating the house,” Gretel whispers.“It’s different from the food she gives you.”

“Different how?”you ask.

“It’s… changing me.”

“How?”

The floorboards creak.Gretel’s eyes widen and she shakes her head.Maybe in another story, you convince her to tell you more, but in this one?In this one, she collects your empty dishes—each plate licked clean for the very last crumbs—and disappears.

* * *

“I’ve waited long enough,” says the witch.“Skinny or fat, I eat the boy today.Gretel, turn on the oven.”

A horrible silence.

“But… last time you wanted your cauldron,” says Gretel.She risks a glance at you.

Somehow you sense that a plan to save you has just gone awry.

“Last time I wanted to boil him in a stew,” says the witch.“Now I want to bake him into a pie.”

Another more horrible silence.“A pie?”

Gretel’s stalling.

“Don’t just stand there,” the witch barks, “turn on the oven!”

“But Grandmother,” says Gretel, “I don’t know how.”