Page 26 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” you say.

Another moment passes.Then, she tells the story:

“Once, many years ago now, our king was riding through the woods of another land and came upon a lake where he hoped to rest.His guards found a peasant girl hiding in a hovel, and she was sobeautiful he fell instantly,madlyin love with her.No other girl would do, not for him, so he decided to take her as his bride.Well, she put up a hell of a fight, but she wouldn’t tell him what was wrong.She couldn’t speak, but somehow she got him to understand she couldn’t leave without the six swans that swam in the water.They weren’t merely swans, you see—they were her brothers.”

“No kidding,” you whisper, as if surprised.

“Her brothers had been cursed,” the serving girl says.“And their sister had to be silent for six years, and sew each brother a shirt of thorns, to make them human again.”

“That’s quite an ordeal.”

“That’s just the beginning.So our king brought her whole family home with him and made her his queen.His mother, though—she wasfurious, and did everything she could to make him hate our Silent Queen.Even tried to tell him the queen was acannibalwho planned to eat her own children.Everyone knows only witches are cannibals, and the king knew he hadn’t married a witch.Nothing she did could move his heart, so she spread rumors in the country that the queen was a witch, and made us all believe it, and well…”

“… Well?”

“Someone kidnapped her, and planned to burn her at the stake,” says the serving girl.“It nearly got that far.At the last moment, though, she threw those thorn-shirts over each swan, and each swan became a man, and each man insisted our queen wasn’t a witch.She was just trying to break a spell.”

“What happened to the king’s mother?”

“Burned her instead.”

You exhale a long breath.“Quite a story,” you say.

“Oh, it doesn’t end there,” says the serving girl.“The king was so horrified by what his own mother had done to his bride, he fell down dead of a broken heart, right on the spot.”

Oh, Gertrude, no, you think.Damn it all, can any of us be happy?

“I see,” you mutter.“And the Swan Prince… why does he still have a wing?”

“Oh, that part,” the serving girl laughs.“At the time the queen was kidnapped, she only had one sleeve left to sew on one shirt… But she had no way of finishing it.So she threw an unfinished shirt on him.No sleeve, no arm.He seems happy enough, though.Lives in the woods and visits town pretty often.”

With a shrug, she walks away to serve other customers.

Your mind buzzes.

Friend presses her face into your thigh, but you barely feel her.

You’re so tangled in the tapestry of Favorite’s story (and who wouldn’t be?) that you do not realize her own story is just about to begin.

Seven

On the wayup the inn’s creaking stairs, Friend weaves between your legs.In the bedroom, she whines and nudges you.“What’s up, kid?”you ask, and she paws at your chest, unable to tell you her troubles, her burdens.As you undress for bed, she circles your ankles; before you can settle down onto the hard lump of a mattress (blessed horrible thing, you’ll fall asleep fast), sheboofs, uselessly, for you can’t understand.

All you can do is keep her close.Listen to her.You check the locks on the windows, the lock on the door.She doesn’t seem to want to leave; if there were danger here, she’d yank you right out the door.She’s done as much before.Whatever unsettles her, you just have to love her through it.Scratch her ears.Whisper to her.Reassure her she’s okay, she’s safe.Promise her you’re not going anywhere.

(How could you guess that it’sshewho’s leaving?)

* * *

In the middle of the night, Friend’s whining wakes you.You reach for her and embrace empty air.

Sitting up, you see them by the door: Friend, and… a rooster.A rooster.

What?

You roll out of bed.The moment you stand, Friend blocks you from moving across the room.“I’ve got to get rid of the rooster,” you say, and shegrowls.Has sheevergrowled at you?Brows furrowed, you watch her walk back to the rooster, to the unlocked door (but you locked it, so how—?), and sit beside that stupid bird.

Then she tilts back her head and howls.