Page 31 of How To Survive This Fairytale

“Just the skin?”

“Long story.”

He snips a bit more at the rosebush, but then, before you know it, he’slookingat you again.

“Do we know each other?”he asks.“I swear you’re familiar to me.”

“We do,” you say.“Or, we used to.It’s been a long time.”

He searches you again.Your beard, thick as lambswool, disguises whatever remnants of childhood remain in your face.Your thick brows, wide shoulders, barrel chest, biceps as big as melons—he’ll never guess.You were so small, the last time he knew you.Still, you let the silence stretch on.It’s more fun to let him guess.

“Iknow you,” he says, more determined.“Now just hang on.Hang on.”

He drops the shears and stands.A few inches taller than you, he looks down into your eyes, which have been changed by witnessing so much more violence, but then?—

“Hansel,” he whispers.“Hansel?You’realive?”

Your name in his voice shoots through you like lightning.

“You’re alive!”

“What reason did you have to think otherwise?”

“The Fair Queen, when Gertrude asked, the Fair Queen said… No, it doesn’t matter.Not right now.You’rehere!”

He wraps you in his embrace too swiftly to stop him.Your head falls perfectly against his shoulder; his arm and wing wrap snugly around your back.Your own arms hang uncertain at your sides, but he clutches you tight, dirtying your shirt with his garden glove.

You thought of me…The words get caught in your throat.You thought of me?You tried to get me back.You wanted me back.Could you still want me back?

Though the motion makes your bones creak with rust, you raise your arms, and hug him so tight he squeals with renewed laughter.

Twelve

Cyrus.His name isCyrus.The first syllable the sigh of opening wings, the second the rustle of feathers.The whole thing together is a sunlit brightness, likecitrus—or the open-mouthed, sun-thirsty beauty ofiris.A name like secrets, the roots growing beneath the bottom of the lake.A name like reaching for the sky.

Oh, you’re done for.

Thirteen

That night,you walk through the woods in a haze.

Back at the inn, relief breaks over the serving girl’s face when she sees you.

“There you are!”she exclaims.“You didn’t come back last night, but your things were still upstairs.I was this close to sending someone out looking for you.”

You stare blankly at her.The room is paid for; why should she care whether you’re gone for two nights?Why should she care whether you come back at all?

Later, you will realize people care about other people, oftentimes without awhyorhow.

Fourteen

You ordersupper because you haven’t eaten all day.

Cyrus wanted to feed you, but you told him Granny fed you first.One day you’ve known him, and already you’ve lied.Since you didn’t eat at his table, he sent you on your way with vegetables from his garden, and a pouch of seeds.If you like my garden so much, he’d said after you complimented it for the tenth time,take these, you can start one of your own!

The pouch in your palm contains so many promises.When you untie it, the seeds stare up at you.There was a time in your life when a handful of seeds and fertile soil in which to plant them might have saved you.When you think of how hungry you were, how barren the earth, those hours in the woods spent foraging—foragingwithCyrus… And now you’ve survived to see a full-circle conclusion.A child of famine now grows a garden; the swan who loved eelgrass now loves alfalfa.

You chuckle.