Page 24 of How To Survive This Fairytale

Maybe it’s better if you don’t.

Because if he’s human, if Gertrude is free—you won’t be able to resist knowing them again.You know they deserve better, and even still, you’dwantthem.

Better not to know.Better not to want.Better not to make them turn you away.

Five

Six months into the woods,miles from anywhere you’ve been before, you come upon a clearing.A wide expanse of treeless meadow, with tall grasses and bright flowers—and a high stone tower, closer to the sky than any old tree.Vines curl around the stonework like a dragon’s many fractured tails, and the dragon’s treasure emerges at the window: a maiden, who tosses miles worth of golden hair over the sill to a crone down below.

Kneeling by a trickling stream, you refill your canteen and rub Friend’s hide while she drinks.Only the water matters to her, but you can’t look away from the maiden and the crone.Like a mountain climber with a rope, the crone ties the hair around her middle and ascends the side of the tower to that impossible window.

“What a world we live in,” you mutter bitterly.Towers and maidens and crones—witches, more like.The idea of it makes your skin crawl, but what canyoudo?You’re not a prince.You’re useless against a witch’s brand of power.Besides, there’s somethingelsefor you—you can feel it, an itch under your skin, drawing you away from this story and toward another.

A little splash of water to your face, and you stand up.

Friend is slower to rise.

The white of her muzzle seems even whiter than it was just weeks ago.How did the years spin by so fast?I don’t have much longer with you, old girl, do I?

“Let’s get you a steak,” you murmur, not really to her, but more to yourself, to every version of yourself that has loved her.“A nice, juicy steak.”

Six

For the next week,Friend sets the pace.Slow.Leisurely.Curious.She stops to sniff each flower, each mound of dirt.A rabbit crosses her path, and she growls, showing all her teeth.She growls at rabbits the way she used to growl at girls, you remember with a wave of nausea.The way the Fair Queen’s maidens would try to run from you, only for Friend to stop them—because she loved you, and you’d given her instruction.

You can’t change what her quarry used to be.You would, if it were possible, but that would require so much undoing—and how much undoing can be done before you’ve undone everything you’d want to leave intact?

No, you can’t change the past.But you can let her chase gophers until she doesn’t want to anymore.You can let her dig at the entrance to a warren.You can let herboofat raccoons and foxes.You can let her feel brave, and strong, and needed.Because she is.

* * *

In the next town, you sell a few grouses to the butcher.Friend wags her tail at your feet, tongue hanging out of her mouth, all pride and tender glee.I’ve still got it, she seems to say.I’m still great at what I do.

“This old lady helped you, eh?”The butcher peers over the counter at her.“Coin won’t mean anything to her.I got something else she’ll like.”

A bone.

A bone that fits perfectly in Friend’s mouth, that she wrestles with her teeth and paws.Would the butcher be so kind if she knew what you’d done, what you’d trained your sweet old lady to hunt with you?No—you know this—of course not.Her kindness wedges inside your chest like a splinter you can’t take out: it’ll sit there, and become a part of you, and never quite feel like it belongs.

Leaving the butcher, you walk deeper into town, Friend carrying that bone like a medal of honor.The marketplace buzzes with its usual crowd, but a small audience has gathered around a raised platform.You’re quite happy to walk on by, but when a rooster crows, Friend’s ears prick up, and she squeezes between strangers’ skirts and capes to watch the show.

Which is the strangest show you’ve ever seen.

A red rooster perches on the back of an orange cat, which perches on the back of a tawny donkey.The rooster keeps on crowing; then the cat joins in with a mournful yowl; then the donkey brays, and brays, and brays.

“Let’s get out of here, Friend,” you say.“The inn’s this way.”

But she doesn’t turn to you.She doesn’t even hear your voice.You whistle, and she glares at you like you’re a mannerless peasant who has interrupted the opera.

Well, all right.

For her sake, you’ll endure… whatever this is.A racket.A sign of the end times.

It goes on, and on, and on.The crowing and the yowling and the braying change rhythm, occasionally, but you’re doing your best not to listen.You’re doing your best not towatch, either—the rhythmic motions of their heads and limbs, like adance, send shivers up your spine.You’d rather look anywhere else.

So, you watch the marketplace.The parents holding the hands of their young children.The crying toddlers unleashing volcanoes of misery, refusing to be soothed.The couples walking arm in arm; the couples standing so close they might as well be sewn together at the hip.The man holding out his wide, white wing for a group of children who stare in awe.

The man holding out his?—