Page 28 of How To Survive This Fairytale
Day after day, you drink until you can’t feel.
* * *
Did someone abandon you?Someone abandoned me, too.
Over, and over, and over again: abandoned.Your father first, and now Friend, with so many in between.Gertrude included.Favorite—the Swan Prince—included.Why didn’t they summon you from the claws of the Fair Queen?It’s been years since their tragedies, their failures.And your loss wasoneof their tragedies, wasn’t it?So why wouldn’t they seek to undo it, to bring you back into the fold of their family?Why didn’t anyonecome for youwhen youneededthem?
Because they knew you weren’t worth it, an inner voice supplies.Just like Friend.
* * *
Did they ever think about you?Wonder about you?Even once?You hope they did.(But if they did, why didn’t they try to find you?)
You hope they didn’t.(Imagine them worrying for your safety, when all along the beautiful maidens of the world weren’t safe fromyou.)
* * *
The problem is you have to see him, and you just can’t stop yourself.No matter how much you drink, the need is still there.It’s there when you wake, and it’s there in your dreams, and it’s there every hour in between.There’s no running from this, now that it’s here.If you don’t see him you will dissolve like sugar in water; you’ll burn forever, your heart an oven that eats and eats and eats.
You trim your beard, don fresh clothes, pull on your boots, and head out of the inn.Out of the inn, and into the woods.
* * *
A well-worn path leads out of town and into the woods.Impressions from wagon-wheels line either side of it.In the middle: the tracks of various-sized boots.The criss-cross of finch feet; the imprint of a deer’s hoof.For a moment you stand at the path’s inception, where cobblestone gives way to trodden soil, where brick buildings surrender to mighty branches.Hesitation hums through you.How many years has it been?Will he remember you?Will he care?Will he invite you inside?Let you sit with him?Talk to you?Tell you about all you’ve missed?
If he doesn’t, you remind yourself,that’s a story, too.
You take your first step down the path.
Not a happy one, but a story all the same.
Then the next.
What would I do with a happy story, anyway?I’m too used to blood.
And the next, and the next, and the next.
* * *
In the woods, you meet a woman hanging linens on a clothesline outside her modest home.“The prince lives deeper yet,” she tells you, “in a cottage with a vegetable garden in front.His tomatoes are a mess.You won’t miss it.”
You nod your thanks and carry on.A vegetable garden.Somehow, this piece of Favorite doesn’t fit into what you’d imagined.You’d imagined a lake, and a strong, stone cottage built beside it, an upgrade from Gertrude’s hovel.If not a lake, then a pond, at least.You’d imagined the grown-up version of the child-sized life.A common pitfall, you suppose.
Miles pass between each cottage, none yet with a tangle of tomatoes out front.You spare each home a glance as you come up to it, just to be certain.
That’s when you notice the blood-streaked porch.
Instantly your hand goes to the hunting knife on your belt, and you walk up the path to the front door.
Inside: the click of claw on wood.A low, satisfied chuckle, with all the gravel of a growl in it.Like Friend’s voice, but more ancient, less tame.Something in your belly quivers.Somethingyounginside you.Gripping the knife, you try the door, and the knob gives under the gentle turn of your hand.
The wolf lay by the hearth, belly distended, a woman’s apron and a child’s red cloak shredded beside it.Your heart throws itself against your ribs:I remember, I remember, cries your heart,I remember and I’m afraid.
Your heart may be afraid, but the rest of you is hard as stone.You’re not a boy anymore.You’re no longer at the mercy of the woods.
As you step further into the house, the floorboards don’t creak under the careful placement of your foot.The wolf doesn’t raise its head, doesn’t seem to smell you, either, too busy chuckling to itself.
“What a meal,” it mutters, “the grandmother and the child both!What a meal…”