Page 27 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“No,” you say.“No, you can’t possibly want…”

The rooster screeches its alarm, and Friend howls along, like a wolf upon its first introduction to the moon.In all the years you’ve known her, she’s never howled with such vigor and insistence.And now, suddenly, she finds her reason is a rooster, a cat, and a donkey.

You march across the floorboards.That stupid fucking rooster convinced Friend to leave you, so you snap its neck.

no.wait.i don’t want the story to end this way.

let me try again.

You march across the floorboards.That stupid fucking rooster convinced Friend to leave you, so you toss it out of the room and bar the door.Friend barks, and scratches at the wood—all night long, she barks and scratches, barks and scratches, but you don’t let her out.“That life’s not for you, Friend,” you tell her.“You’re mine.We’re family.It’s us, ‘til the end.”

Come morning, Friend throws herself against the window sill.Through the glass, you watch the rooster, the cat, and the donkey walk away from the inn together.Each of the animals pauses to look up at Friend—and then, as they disappear down the dirt street, the zest for life disappears from Friend’s eyes.She descends from the window sill, curls up in a corner on the floor, and makes no sound.Doesn’t move at all.Doesn’t look at you.Doesn’t care about the bones you offer.

You think of the tower, and the maiden at its top, trapped.

i don’t want the story to end this way, either.

let me try again.

You march across the floorboards.Your hands ache with a desire for violence—a desire you are trying to train out of yourself, a desire you cannot allow to define you.

You look away from the rooster.The rooster doesn’t matter anymore.

“Is this really what you want?”you ask.Friend’s jowls jiggle as she nods her head.You have no idea how you’ll manage the noise.You started drinking a potion to avoid tasting your food—maybe another apothecary can keep you from hearing Friend’s “music.”

“All right,” you concede.“Then we’ll go.”

She barks sharply.

“What’s wrong?I said we’ll go.”

For the second time, she growls at you.And then she makes a choice of her own, a choice you could not fathom she even had the capacity to make.For the first time ever, she speaks.

“Your story is here,” she says.Her voice is as gravelly as her growl—not unkind, but not human at all, and creaking under the weight of its age.“Mine is elsewhere.”

“No,” you say.“No.I don’t have a story here.There’s nothing here that needs me.”

“Someone made a wish,” she says, “and you’re its answer.”

“Stop,” you say.“I’m not worth a wish.”

“I’ve smelled that wish on you for years, but it’s stronger now.It’s time, pup.”

Friend licks your hands.You fall to your knees to rub all over her body, scratching behind her ears, along the thickness of her ribs.How thin she was when she first found you—how much stronger she is now.When she saved you all those years ago, you didn’t know there would be a cost.You didn’t know she would ask to be saved, too, or that saving her would require such a steep sacrifice.

“The world will call me Palestrina Scarlet,” she says.“But I hope, even when I am gone, you will still call me friend.”

Damn it.You swallow over the lump of emotion in your throat.“Always.”

“Wherever I go, whenever I sing,” she says, “know it’s because you loved me.”

Eight

In the morning,from the inn’s porch, you watch her go.

You don’t belong to anyone, do you?you once asked her.She belonged to you.Who does she belong to now?A rooster, a cat, and a donkey.The corner of your lip twitches.The lump in your throat hasn’t gone away since she left.Buy something to make your life bearable, an old friend reminds you from the grave.Even though morning just broke, you go back inside, sit at the bar, and drink liquor you can’t taste until you can’t feel, either.

* * *