Page 23 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“If I do,” you say, “I cannot save you.”

And she is the one who must stop the Fair Queen.Only a princess can kill a witch.This storymustbe hers.Something in the woods will see that.Something in the woods will keep her safe.You’ve lived long enough to learn that stories—if they are powerful enough—do not end until they are satisfied with their ending.

Despite her tears—despite the fact that she has no one to guide her—Snow White takes off into the woods, running and running and running until the trees swallow her.Why keep running?Why resist, when the ending seems inevitable?

Because she knows what you knew, so long ago: that she has one glorious, wretched life, and she’ll hold onto it until the Fair Queen rips her heart out of her chest herself.

She doesn’t die here, you think, nocking an arrow and taking aim at a deer.That can’t be the way this story ends.

* * *

You serve the Fair Queen a stag’s heart.

She doesn’t taste the difference.

Two

You pack your things.One satchel, nothing more.None of your valuables.Just a few weapons.Your favorite gun, your most reliable bow, a quiver of arrows, your sharpest knife.And Friend, of course—she may be old, she may be ailing, but you won’t leave her behind.Not ever.

You’re going on a hunting trip.What more could you need?

In the pre-dawn darkness, you slip through the corridors like a shadow, with Friend hobbling at your heels.The guards don’t ask where you’re headed; they’re accustomed to your early starts and your bloody errands.The sooner you’re gone, the sooner you’ll be back to fulfill the Fair Queen’s next gruesome whim.

Just like that, you’re through the doors, over the bridge, and into the woods—the woods, with dense trees and lush leaves that conceal you from sight.Where else would you possibly go?Here, you begin to run—between the trees, under their branches, over their upturned roots.You run until your heart throbs in your teeth, until your lungs burn like a furnace, until blisters swell inside your boots.You’d keep running if it weren’t for Friend, so much older than she used to be, with hips that ache so badly she can’t keep up.

She whimpers, and you kneel beside her.“I’m not leaving you behind, old girl,” you assure her.“You saved me.I could never leave you.”

You feed her and let her rest for a little while.Then, when you can wait no longer to put distance between yourself and the life you’re leaving behind, you scoop her into your arms.A big dog, she fits against your barrel chest, her forelegs over your left shoulder, her head alert above yours.As you resume your trek, at a brutal pace, she doesn’t bark or whimper at all, held so securely in your embrace.

“Good dog,” you say, pressing a kiss to her fur.“The best dog.”

Three

During the firstmonth on the road, you come upon two men who admire your skill with a gun.

“You can strike the left eye of a fly two miles away?”says one, incredulous.

“Youmustcome with us, sir,” says the other.“Together we three can stand against the world.”

“Fuck off,” you snarl, and lead Friend away.

Four

Five months into your journey,you come upon a crumbling castle.

The castle is a monument to a kingdom that no longer exists.

From the rolling hills beyond, you survey its parapets, its turrets, its towers, and ramparts.Once upon a time, a long time ago, it might have been beautiful: now it has been abandoned to the woods to become a part of the woods.Birds’ nests sprawl across every edge, soiling the white stone below; the stained glass windows, now shattered, welcome bats to roost.

Friend yawns and pillows her head upon her paws.Dinner cooks over the campfire you build.As the sun sets—as the light turns to liquid gold, then to wisps, then nothing—the fire grows brighter, and the night huddles closer.

In the decrepit palace, a singular window flickers with light.You feed Friend scraps of meat from your palm, watching that window, at the orange beacon that wards off the darkness.An old memory surges to the forefront of your mind.

“There’s a princess in there,” you tell Friend.“Sleeping, for one hundred years.No, don’t look at me like that—there’s nothing we can do to help her.Only True Love’s Kiss will wake her.We both know that can’t be me.And if it was—” you scoff— “she’d deservefarbetter.”

You think of Favorite, of the singular kiss you pressed to his beak.How young you were.How naive and innocent still.How presumptuous, too, to think you knew some secret loophole when Gertrude already knew the solution.Love wasn’t the cure to his curse: it was pain, silent suffering, and a lonely,lonelytask.You wonder if Gertrude ever succeeded.You wonder if Favorite is a man again.

You doubt you’ll ever find out.